Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus

Which should you choose?

The difference is what you pay for and who does the work. Adobe charges more as you sell more and leaves upgrades and custom code with your team; Shopify Plus charges a near-flat subscription and runs the platform – in exchange for less control of the core.

How do Adobe Commerce and Shopify Plus compare side by side?

Broad comparison; details vary by deployment and contract. Shopify pricing and platform facts as of October 2026; the Adobe Commerce license range is an industry estimate – Adobe does not publish prices.

How is Adobe Commerce licensed – and why does the bill grow?

Adobe doesn’t publish a price list. Its product terms set your license by a pricing level – tiers of gross merchandise value (GMV) and average order value (AOV), or an order limit – written into your sales order and measured over each 12-month contract year.

• What counts as GMV. The value of every transaction processed through your Adobe Commerce sites in the contract year, excluding shipping, the taxes you collect and installment financing charges. Wholesale orders placed through the platform count like any other.
• Why it grows. A strong year can carry you past your tier, and the next quote is priced on the higher level. What happens if you pass it mid-term is set in your own contract.
• Cloud or on-premises. A cloud contract bundles hosting, the Fastly CDN and New Relic monitoring with the license. An on-premises license is software only – servers are a separate bill.
• What it usually costs. Industry estimates put Adobe Commerce at $22,000–$125,000+ a year. A cloud contract includes hosting, so compare it with an on-premises license plus your server bill – not with the license alone.

How Shopify Plus pricing compares

As of October 2026, Shopify Plus costs $2,300/month on a three-year term or $2,500/month on a one-year term – $27,600–⁠$30,000 a year in base fees, with no average-order-value tiers.

It isn’t flat forever. High-volume merchants move to a revenue-based fee that Shopify doesn’t publish – commonly reported at about 0.35–0.40% of sales above roughly $800,000 a month, so confirm yours in writing – and a third-party payment gateway adds a 0.20% Shopify transaction fee. The Shopify Plus pricing guide covers both.

Questions to ask Adobe before you renew

• Which pricing level are we on, and what happens if we pass it before the term ends?
• Which revenue counts toward our GMV – marketplace orders, phone orders keyed into the admin, and every website and store view on the license?
• When is our non-renewal notice deadline, and how must notice be given?
• Does Commerce share an agreement with AEM, Analytics or Target – and what changes for them if Commerce goes?
• Can we renew for one year rather than a multi-year term if we need time to move?

What does Adobe Commerce cost to run next to Shopify Plus?

On license alone, Shopify Plus doesn’t always win: near the bottom of Adobe’s range the two are close. The savings come from the lines under the license – hosting when you run your own servers, upgrade projects and the higher rates of specialist Adobe integrators.

Illustrative ranges from typical mid-market projects, per year unless noted – estimates, not quotes. Real costs depend on GMV, catalog and integration complexity, and staffing. Extensions and apps count only what each platform makes you buy, not tools you’d pay for on either one. Shopify Plus pricing checked on Shopify’s pricing page in October 2026; Adobe does not publish Adobe Commerce prices.

The biggest gap is usually development and support: $60,000–$300,000 a year to keep Adobe Commerce running, against $24,000–$180,000 on Shopify Plus. All in – subscription, apps and ongoing development, before payment processing – a realistic Shopify Plus budget lands between $60,000 and $250,000+ a year.

Costs the table leaves out

• An overlap year. Miss your non-renewal notice deadline and you pay for another Adobe term while Shopify Plus is already live. Timing the move against the contract avoids it – see renewal timing.
• A forced upgrade. From June 1, 2027, Adobe will enforce upgrades on its cloud for releases past support. If staying means an upgrade project, put its quote next to the cost of moving.
• Payment processing. It usually outweighs the subscription at scale, so compare your current processor’s rate with Shopify Payments – keeping a third-party gateway adds Shopify’s 0.20% fee on top.
• Tools you’d pay for on either platform. Email and SMS, reviews, search and helpdesk vendors charge much the same on Adobe Commerce or Shopify, so they sit outside the table. With those tools included, a full Shopify Plus app stack typically runs $800–$6,000 a month – the Shopify Plus pricing guide breaks it down.
• A second brand. One Adobe Commerce installation can run several brands as separate websites. Shopify Plus is sold as one brand per contract, so each extra brand adds its own subscription.
• The move itself. Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus migrations typically cost $60,000–⁠$200,000 once, over 10–⁠24+ weeks. The migration cost guide shows what moves the number.

Cloud, on-premises or Cloud Service – does it change the answer?

Yes. On Adobe’s cloud, staying now means meeting Adobe’s upgrade deadlines or rebuilding on Cloud Service; on-premises, it means running everything yourself. Adobe sells three deployments, and its roadmap points cloud customers to the newest one.

Source: Adobe Commerce documentation, checked October 2026. Running Magento Open Source, with no Adobe license? Read Magento vs Shopify Plus instead.

Adobe’s cloud upgrade deadlines

Adobe has announced that it will enforce version upgrades on its cloud. From June 1, 2027, it will no longer maintain cloud environments running unsupported releases, and says that can include suspending traffic – which takes the storefront offline.

Source: Adobe Commerce lifecycle policy, last updated September 18, 2026. Extended support and the security-only period apply to Adobe Commerce customers. Adobe’s policy table doesn’t list 2.4.3 and earlier; its June 1, 2027 rule covers every unsupported release. Release-by-release support history is in our Magento vs Shopify Plus guide.

Cloud Service is a replatform, not an upgrade

Adobe’s lifecycle policy calls Cloud Service its “recommended long-term destination for all Adobe Commerce on Cloud customers.” Getting there is a rebuild: Luma storefronts aren’t supported, the storefront moves to Edge Delivery Services, and PHP modules that run inside the application are rewritten to run outside it with App Builder and API Mesh.

So if Adobe is steering you toward Cloud Service, you’re already pricing a rebuild. Put it next to Shopify Plus: license, rebuild cost, timeline and who maintains the store afterward. A free migration assessment gives you the Shopify Plus side within 2 business days.

Who handles security, PCI and maintenance?

On Adobe’s cloud, Adobe runs the servers and your team still owns the application – so PCI and security work shrinks but doesn’t go away. On-premises, all of it is yours.

• PCI and security. Adobe describes cloud security as a shared responsibility: it maintains PCI certification for the infrastructure and services, while merchants answer for their custom code, integrations and processes. On Shopify Plus, Shopify carries PCI DSS Level 1 compliance for the platform and checkout.
• Edge protection. Adobe’s cloud includes Fastly’s web application firewall on production environments and protection against common network-level attacks. Shopify runs the equivalent for every store.
• Peak traffic. On Adobe’s cloud you request a temporary upsize through a support ticket, with 48 business hours’ notice for planned events, and the extra capacity draws on your licensed overage. On Shopify Plus, scaling for a sale is Shopify’s job.

Patches and upgrades – and what Shopify still asks of you

Adobe issues core security patches; on cloud and on-premises alike, your team applies them and tests each one against your extensions and custom code. Version upgrades are projects, now with the cloud deadlines above.

That testing also sets how fast you ship. New features share release cycles with patches, and each release is regression-tested against your modules before it goes live. On Shopify Plus, theme and app changes ship on their own, with no core upgrade to test them against.

Shopify Plus has no versions to upgrade, but it isn’t maintenance-free. Shopify releases a new API version every quarter and supports each for at least 12 months, so custom apps and integrations need a yearly update. And Shopify retires features on its own schedule: stores that relied on Shopify Scripts had to rebuild that logic in Shopify Functions before Scripts stopped running on June 30, 2026.

Can Shopify Plus replace Adobe Commerce B2B and custom logic?

For most wholesale programs, yes – and since April 2, 2026, core B2B isn’t even a Plus exclusive. The gaps are the workflows Adobe’s B2B suite runs natively and Shopify covers with draft orders, apps or custom code.

Shopify B2B features as of October 2026. Apps are billed by their vendors.

The Plus case for B2B is scale and control: unlimited catalogs assigned to specific companies and locations, deposits and partial payments, custom Shopify Functions and checkout extensions for your rules, and expansion stores for a separate wholesale storefront.

Checkout, custom modules and multi-store setups

• Custom modules. Adobe Commerce lets PHP modules change almost any core behavior. On Shopify Plus that logic is rebuilt – not ported – as Shopify Functions for discounts, shipping, payment and validation, checkout UI extensions, custom apps and webhooks.
• Checkout. Adobe gives you the checkout code. Shopify Plus customizes checkout through Checkout Extensibility: UI extensions, the branding API, web pixels and Functions. That covers most requirements, but not every bespoke step of a heavily modified checkout.
• Websites, stores and store views. These become Shopify Markets for countries, currencies, languages and domains in one store, or expansion stores where a region or B2B channel of the same brand needs its own admin. A website that sells a separate brand needs its own Plus contract.
• Promotions and loyalty. Cart price rules map to Shopify discounts and Functions; reward points move to a loyalty app; content staging gives way to Launchpad for scheduled sales and releases.

ERP, PIM and OMS connections move through the Admin API or middleware such as Celigo or Boomi; see commerce integrations.

What happens to AEM, Analytics and Target?

They don’t have to go. Adobe Experience Cloud products are separate from Commerce, and most connect to Shopify Plus through its APIs and customer events. What doesn’t carry over are the pieces built only for Adobe Commerce.

Common mappings as of October 2026; each system is confirmed one by one during discovery.

Keeping AEM usually means a headless storefront: AEM serves content, Shopify serves products, cart and checkout. That’s a bigger build than a theme, so weigh it against moving content into Shopify – headless commerce explains when it pays off.

When should you start, relative to your renewal?

6–9 months before the renewal date. Adobe Commerce migrations take 10–⁠24+ weeks, and the decision has to be made before your contract’s notice deadline – not just before renewal. Work back from whichever of these dates comes first.

In practice: a free assessment and a fixed quote in the first weeks, the decision before the notice deadline, then the build. Your Adobe store keeps trading until cutover, and launching before the term ends leaves time to monitor the new store first. The Adobe Commerce to Shopify Plus migration page walks through each step.

Less than 6 months to go?

Ask for a free assessment anyway. The simplest Adobe Commerce moves take about 10 weeks, so a tight scope can still land before renewal – and the assessment tells you plainly if it can’t. If it can’t, ask Adobe whether a one-year renewal is available, so you aren’t locked into a multi-year term while you plan the move.

Thinking about leaving Adobe Commerce?

Price the move before you sign the next term. OUXP moves Adobe Commerce stores – on Adobe’s cloud or on-premises – to Shopify Plus. We were building enterprise Magento stores before Shopify Plus existed, so we know where an Adobe store keeps its logic: modules, B2B configuration, cron jobs and CDN rules.

Our free assessment needs no access to your store. Within 2 business days an engineer sends a written platform verdict, timeline band, cost band and the 2–3 risks most likely to complicate your move – and says so if renewing with Adobe is the better call.

What an Adobe Commerce move involves

1. B2B data. Companies, buyers, addresses and shared-catalog prices map to Shopify companies, locations and catalogs; open quotes and requisition lists get their own cutover plan.
2. Store structure. Websites and store views become Markets or expansion stores, and a separate brand moves to its own Plus contract – decided before any data moves.
3. Adobe services. Live Search, Product Recommendations, Analytics, Target and AEM are mapped one by one: kept, reconnected or replaced.
4. Redirects and SEO. Redirects held in the Commerce admin, in .magento/routes.yaml on cloud and in Fastly rules are inventoried and merged into a per-pattern 301 map for every URL. SEO preservation is always included.
5. Integrations. Each ERP, PIM, OMS or 3PL connection is moved from Adobe’s APIs to Shopify’s Admin API or your middleware, then scoped and tested on its own.

Typical range: $60,000–⁠$200,000 over 10–⁠24+ weeks. The assessment gives you a band; the price and timeline are fixed in writing before work starts.