How to Open a Shopify Store in 2026, Step by Step

Opening a Shopify store in 2026 starts with three free days and then costs $1 a month for your first three months. After that you pay the regular plan price. This guide walks through every step on a real store we opened on September 20, 2026, with a screenshot of each screen, and tells you exactly what it costs once the introductory months are over.

The offer, and what it costs after

This is what Shopify's pricing page says, read on September 22, 2026:

"Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months."

The free days start without a credit card, according to Shopify's free trial page. The $1 months apply to the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans. Once they end, you move to the normal monthly price:

Source: Shopify pricing, read September 22, 2026. Basic also pays 1% back on your sales as Shopify credits, up to $5,000.

Our own store shows the offer from the inside. Its plan page reads "Basic, $1 USD/month until 23 December 2026" — three months from the day we opened it — then the regular $39.

The button above goes to Shopify's standard sign-up page with this offer. It costs you nothing extra: the price is the same as going to Shopify directly.

Step 1: Sign up

Enter your email on the sign-up page and click start. Shopify then asks a few quick questions about what you sell and where. It takes a couple of minutes.

Step 2: Pick a plan

At the end of sign-up, Shopify asks you to choose a plan, and each plan shows the three-month trial. For most people starting out, Basic is the right one: it is the cheapest plan with a full online store. Starter, at $5 a month, does not include a standalone storefront.

Step 3: Fix the admin language if you need to

If you sign up from outside the US, your admin may open in your local language. We signed up from Israel and ours opened in Hebrew, marked "Beta". The setting is not in your store settings. It is in your Shopify account profile → Preferred language. Change it there and the whole admin switches.

Step 4: Name your store

Settings → General → Store contact details → Store name. Shopify's help text under the field says it "Appears on your online store". Our store started out with a default name in Hebrew, so this is worth checking even if you think you set it during sign-up.

Step 5: Set your currency

Settings → General → Store defaults, then the "…" menu next to Currency display → Change store currency. One tip that saves a minute of scrolling: US Dollar is at the very top of the list, above the A–Z run, not next to the other currencies that start with U. Change this before you add products, because Shopify warns that changing it later may mean updating your prices and shipping rates.

Step 6: Add your first product

Products → Add product. Give it a title, a photo and a price, and save. When we saved ours, Shopify filled in the product category by itself ("Cutting Boards in Kitchen Tools & Utensils"). That category matters more than it looks: Shopify says it "determines tax rates and adds metafields to improve search, filters, and cross-channel sales".

Step 7: Choose your theme

Online Store shows your store with a free starter theme called Horizon. Click Edit theme to change colors, text and images. The Theme Store has more free and paid themes if you want a different look.

Step 8: Check two things before you launch

Your policies. Under Settings → Policies, Shopify has already written and published a privacy policy for you. The Contact information policy is marked Required (Shopify says it is required if you sell into the European Union), and its template fills in the real physical address on your account. That page is public, so read it before you save it.

Private mode. A new store is private: visitors see a password page. When you are ready, click Launch store on the Online Store page.

Step 9: Set up payments

On your admin home page, the Set up payments card is where your store starts taking money. Shopify Payments asks for identity details and a bank account before you can accept payments, so have those ready. We did not set up payments on our store, so we are not going to describe that screen from memory.

What the whole thing costs

For Basic, paid monthly: $1 a month for three months, then $39 a month. Paid yearly after the introductory months, Basic works out to $29 a month. Anything else you add — a paid theme, paid apps, a custom domain — is on top.

Who should not start with Shopify

If you sell services rather than products, like coaching or consulting, a booking tool will usually fit better than a store. And if you only want to sell a couple of items through social media links, Shopify Starter at $5 a month is enough — just know it does not give you a full website.

How we made this guide

We opened this store on September 20, 2026 from Shopify's regular sign-up page and chose Basic. Every admin screenshot is from that store. Prices and offer wording come from Shopify's pricing and free trial pages, read on September 22, 2026. We did not set up Shopify Payments and did not publish the store. For what happens when you try to get that store's products in front of AI assistants, see what Shopify requires before ChatGPT can sell your products.