Kavita ben runs a kurti and dress material shop in Rajkot. Twelve years at the same counter, and a WhatsApp broadcast list that sells half her new stock before it reaches the shelf.

This year her son Harsh said what every son says: "Mummy, we need a proper website." He opened Shopify's India pricing page, saw ₹1,499 a month, and said, "That's less than the electricity bill."

He was right about the first line. The trouble is that a store's bill has more than one line.

The number on the pricing page

Shopify's India pricing page is clear. Basic is ₹1,499 a month when you pay yearly, or ₹1,994 when you pay month to month. Grow is ₹5,599 a month yearly (₹7,447 monthly), and Advanced is ₹22,680 a month yearly (₹30,164 monthly). There is also an offer for new stores of three days free, then ₹20 a month for three months.

For hosting, checkout and a polished admin, that is fair pricing. But for an Indian fashion store, it is the start of the bill, not the end.

The line most people miss: the third-party fee

Shopify Payments, Shopify's built-in payment processing, is not available in India. India is not on Shopify's list of supported countries, so an Indian store has to use a third-party payment gateway.

When you do that, Shopify adds its own third-party transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. That is on top of what the gateway charges. A typical Indian gateway's standard rate is about 2% per successful transaction, plus 18% GST on that fee.

Here is a simple illustration. Say Harsh's website sells ₹2,00,000 a month on the Basic plan:

• Shopify's third-party fee at 2%: ₹4,000

• A gateway's fee at about 2%: ₹4,000, plus ₹720 GST on that fee

That is close to ₹8,700 a month in payment-related charges, already more than five times the plan fee. Grow cuts Shopify's share to 1%, but the plan costs more, so do the sum for your own shop.

What about the 2026 Shopify Payments fee changes you may have read about? They mostly concern merchants who can use Shopify Payments. Reports describe a standardisation of older rates for some long-time US and Australian merchants from April, and a change from 6 April 2026 in how currency conversion fees are calculated. Parity, which tracks these rates, says standard US processing rates did not go up in 2026. For an Indian store, the line that matters is still the third-party fee.

The apps a fashion store ends up needing

Shopify keeps its core lean and lets apps fill the gaps. For a kurti shop, the gaps add up fast, and most apps are billed in US dollars every 30 days. Here is what we found on the Shopify App Store this month, with one example app for each job.

• More options than size and colour. Shopify allows three options per product. For a fourth, like fit or sleeve length, its own help centre points to an app. Globo Product Options has a free plan, and its add-on pricing starts at $9.90 a month. Infinite Options is $12.99 a month.

• GST invoices. Apps like GST Invoices India and GST Pro are free for up to 50 orders a month. Paid plans start at about $4.99 to $9.90 a month and go up with order volume.

• Reviews. Judge.me has a generous free plan. Its paid plan is $15 a month.

• WhatsApp order updates. For an Indian shop, this matters more than email. Apps start at about $3 to $5 a month, plus per-message charges as volume grows.

• The theme. Shopify's own themes are free. Paid themes in the Theme Store are a one-time purchase of about $100 to $500, with a median of about $300.

Pick one paid app for each of the first four jobs and the monthly app bill comes to roughly $30 to $45, before any message charges. None is outrageous alone. Together, they are a second subscription that grows as you grow.

The counter is a separate question

Then there is the counter, where Kavita ben still makes most of her money.

Shopify's plans include casual in-person selling for pop-ups and events. For a real shop, Shopify sells POS Pro, which adds staff roles, in-store inventory management and pickup. On its India page, POS Pro costs ₹7,000 a month per location. That is ₹84,000 a year for one shop.

If you skip POS Pro and keep your old billing software, you now have two catalogues. The yellow anarkali in M sells at the counter at 6 pm, and the website still shows it in stock at 9 pm. Someone has to fix that by hand, every night, all through wedding season. We wrote about one family living this problem in One Kurta, 144 Variants.

What one catalogue saves

When Harsh added it all up for one shop on Shopify Basic, paid yearly, with POS Pro, the first year looked like this, before taxes, apps, theme and payment fees:

• Basic plan: ₹1,499 × 12 = ₹17,988

• POS Pro, one location: ₹7,000 × 12 = ₹84,000

• Total: about ₹1,02,000 a year

That is when he called us.

We are VyaparNext, built by Smart Byte Labs in Surat. Our tagline is "Simple. Affordable. Connected." VyaparNext is a retail POS built for fashion shops first, with a built-in website that shares the same catalogue as the counter.

Variants that fit a fashion catalogue. Size and colour are part of how products are set up, and each variant can have its own barcode. Staff scan the tag and the bill takes that exact variant's price and stock.

Tax invoices and offline billing at the counter. The bill is a tax invoice with one tax rate and prints on a thermal printer. Billing keeps working when the internet drops. VyaparNext does not file your GST return, so your CA still has a job.

One catalogue for the counter and the website. On the Commerce plan, the counter and the website share inventory, orders and customers. When the yellow anarkali in M sells at 6 pm, the website draws from the same stock count.

Here is what that costs, from vyaparnext.com/pricing (fees in INR, excluding 18% GST):

• POS Lite: free to start. Offline billing, purchases, stock and customers.

• Cloud Sync: ₹299/month + GST, about hourly sync across devices.

• Connected POS: ₹10,000 setup + GST, then ₹600/month + GST. Cloud inventory sync, with a website optional.

• Store: ₹25,000 setup + GST, then ₹1,200/month + GST. A managed online store on your own domain.

• Commerce: ₹35,000 setup + GST, then ₹1,800/month + GST. The counter and the website share inventory, orders and customers.

For Kavita ben's shop, Commerce comes to ₹56,600 in the first year (₹35,000 + ₹1,800 × 12) and ₹21,600 a year after that, before GST. Online payments still carry your payment provider's charges, as they do on any platform, but our pricing page lists no extra per-order platform fee on top of the plan. And you don't have to start there. You can start on free POS Lite at the counter and switch the website on when you are ready.

When Shopify is the right choice

To be fair, Shopify is excellent at what it is built for. If you sell mostly online, ship across India or abroad, and want a huge app ecosystem and a proven checkout, Shopify may well be worth every rupee, especially for brands with a team to manage the apps. And on price alone, Shopify Basic is cheaper in the first year for a shop that only needs a website. VyaparNext earns its place when the counter is the heart of the business.

But if your shop lives at the counter, your catalogue runs in sizes and colours, and your evenings go into matching the register with the website, add up the whole bill before you choose. Look at all of it, not just the first line.

Prices change, on Shopify, on app stores and on ours. Check the live pages before you decide.

VyaparNext is built by Smart Byte Labs in Surat. Simple. Affordable. Connected. POS Lite is free at vyaparnext.com, and every plan is on vyaparnext.com/pricing. Send us your current monthly Shopify bill on WhatsApp at +91 8160356061, and we will add up both sides with you, honestly.

I'm Pradip Parmar.

I write a short weekly letter for shop owners who sell at the counter and online. It's free at vyaparnext.substack.com.