Shopify Free Trial 2026: How to Get Started?

Since its release, Shopify has always remained the most widely used eCommerce platform globally. Still, that popularity alone doesn’t guarantee it will be suitable for every merchant. You need to test whether the platform actually aligns with your goals – and, fortunately, the Shopify free trial is designed exactly for that purpose!

In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about this free trial, including:

• How long it lasts
• Features included in the trial
• How to activate the trial
• Things to do after the trial is activated
• How you can cancel the trial
• Other alternative trials available

Let’s get started!

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How Long Is Shopify Free Trial in 2026?

In 2026, Shopify offers up to 90 days for new users to explore the platform. Specifically, this period is split into two phases:

• When you first sign up, you get an initial 3-day free trial that gives you full access to Shopify’s core features without entering any payment details.
• After the initial 3 days, Shopify allows you to continue using the platform for $1 per month for the next 3 months. Though this is no longer technically “free,” the cost makes it extremely affordable for testing and early setup.

When you combine the 3 free days with these 3 discounted months, you effectively get around 90 days to build, customize, and prepare your store before paying the full subscription price.

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Understanding Post-Trial Pricing: The New “Grow” Plan

While the trial offers a low barrier to entry, it is critical to understand the pricing landscape you will enter once the promotional period ends. As of April 2025, Shopify rebranded its standard mid-tier plan from “Shopify” to the “Grow” plan:

• Basic Plan: Best for solopreneurs. It includes 2 staff accounts and standard reporting.
• Grow Plan: Best for scaling teams. This plan (formerly the “Shopify” plan) includes 5 staff accounts and professional reporting features.

Analyst Tip: Do not upgrade to the “Grow” plan solely for the lower transaction fees (2.7% vs. 2.9%) until your store reaches enough revenue to justify it. At that level, the savings from transaction fees can offset the higher monthly subscription cost.

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What Comes With Your Shopify Free Trial?

Once your Shopify free trial is activated, you can start working with almost all of Shopify’s core features needed to build and prepare an online store:

• Full store building
• Design & branding
• Product management
• Marketing tools
• Payments & checkout
• Analytics & settings
• Apps

Let’s discuss them in more detail:

1. Full store building

During the Shopify free trial, you can build your Shopify store exactly as if it were a live store.

Basically, you can create all the core pages (such as Home, About Us, Contact, FAQs, and policy pages), as well as structure your main navigation and footer menus. Not to mention, it’s also possible to control URL slugs, page visibility, and page hierarchy; basically, you fully prepare your site architecture before launch!

And that’s not all; feel free to configure essential store settings, including:

• Currency
• Time zone
• Business address
• Tax regions
• Shipping zones
• Shipping rates.

These configurations are saved and remain intact when you upgrade to a paid plan. The only limitation is that the storefront cannot process real customer checkouts until a paid plan is activated.

Important Limitation: You cannot remove the storefront password page during the initial 3-day free phase. This means you cannot share your link with friends or run ads effectively. To remove the password and let visitors browse freely, you must enter the $1/month phase. This validates your account and unlocks the “Remove Password” setting in Online Store > Preferences.

2. Design & branding

Secondly, the Shopify free trial gives you full access to the theme editor, allowing you to design and brand your store without restrictions. You can:

• Install free themes from the Theme Store
• Customize layouts
• Adjust colors and typography
• Upload logos and favicon files
• Configure homepage sections (e.g., featured products, collections, banners, and promotional blocks).

And just like paid subscribers, you can also preview and customize paid themes during the trial, testing layouts and design options before deciding to purchase. All edits are saved in draft mode, so once you upgrade, your store design will be published instantly.

3. Product management

Here’s the great news: Shopify’s free trial allows you to create and manage an unlimited number of products. So, take this opportunity to:

• Add full product data (including titles, descriptions, pricing, compare-at prices, SKUs, barcodes, product images, videos, and variants)
• Organize products into manual or automated collections using conditions like tags, price ranges, or inventory levels.
• Set stock quantities
• Enable or disable inventory tracking.
• Assign products to locations.
• Test out low-stock behaviors.

In short, one can say the trial period is very suitable for preparing a complete catalog, whether you plan to sell a few items or hundreds of products.

4. Marketing tools

During the free trial, Shopify allows you to set up most of its built-in marketing tools in advance:

• Create discount codes and automatic discounts.
• Define conditions such as minimum purchase amounts, customer eligibility, and usage limits.
• Configure basic email marketing settings, including branded email templates and sender information.

Additionally, the SEO setup is fully available in the trial; feel free to edit page titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and image alt text for products, collections, and individual pages.

Of course, you cannot run live paid campaigns without activating a plan. Nevertheless, we suggest you prepare all marketing assets so that campaigns can be launched immediately once the store goes live.

5. Payments & checkout

Although real payments cannot be processed during the free trial, you can still fully configure payment gateways and checkout behavior. This process includes:

• Connecting payment providers
• Setting up Shopify Payments (where available)
• Defining accepted payment methods
• Configuring checkout preferences such as guest checkout, customer accounts, and order confirmation settings.

And that’s not all; Shopify also allows you to create and manage draft orders during the trial. That way, you can simulate the checkout process and truly understand how orders will appear in the admin. As soon as you upgrade to a paid plan, checkout becomes live without requiring additional setup.

For Dropshippers: If you are using automation tools (e.g, DSers to sync with AliExpress), you cannot fully test the order fulfillment workflow until you have an active checkout. It is highly recommended to enter the $1/month phase immediately so you can place a real test order to verify that your supplier data syncs correctly before spending money on ads.

6. Analytics & settings

And don’t forget that the free trial includes access to Shopify’s analytics dashboard and core store settings.

Basically, it gives you the chance to explore sales report formats, traffic overviews, and customer analytics to understand what data Shopify tracks and how reports are structured. Even without live traffic, this type of preview still helps you become familiar with the reporting system before launch!

In addition, you can also configure all major store settings, including legal pages, customer account behavior, notifications, email templates, language preferences, and regional settings. And no worries; these configurations persist after the trial, meaning no setup work is lost when you upgrade.

7. Apps

Lastly, during the free trial, you can access the Shopify App Store and install many free apps directly into your store.

Since many paid apps provide their own free trials (e.g., 3, 7, 14 days) or basic free plans, you can test functionality like marketing, SEO, or customer support tools without immediate cost. You only need to start paying when you choose a paid Shopify plan and either subscribe to a paid app or exceed the limits of its free tier.

Financial Warning: App Billing is Separate Be aware that third-party apps (e.g., page builders, upsell tools) operate on billing cycles independent of Shopify. If you start a 7-day free trial for a premium app on Day 1 of your Shopify trial, that app will charge your card on Day 8, even if your Shopify subscription is still costing you only $1. → Always manually track the trial expiration dates of every app you install to avoid unexpected charges.

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How to Activate Your Shopify Free Trial?

To activate your Shopify free trial, visit their free trial page, enter your email, and create your account. Eligibility is limited to new users only, meaning you must sign up with an email address that has never been used to register for a Shopify account before:

Step 1. Sign up using your email address

First, visit Shopify’s official free trial page.

You will be asked to enter your email address to begin the sign-up process. Type in the address, then click the arrow on the right to submit your email; Shopify will automatically move you to the account creation stage.

Step 2. Create your account with a password

Here, Shopify will prompt you to create a password, then click “Create your account.” This password, together with your email, will be used to access your Shopify admin dashboard.

After that, Shopify will immediately generate a new store for you. There is no approval process or waiting time; your admin dashboard becomes available right away.

Step 3. Start your free trial

Once your account is created, you will see a confirmation message indicating that your Shopify free trial has started from today. At the same time, Shopify will display a payment information box, inviting you to add your billing details and choose a plan in advance.

At this stage, you are actually not obligated to enter payment information. If desired, simply click “Skip” and continue using the platform during the initial 3-day free trial period.

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What Should You Do After Activating The Trial?

After activating your Shopify free trial, you should focus on building and testing your store foundation, adding products, setting up themes/branding, and configuring payments/shipping:

1. Familiarize yourself with the dashboard

The first thing you should do is spend time navigating the Shopify admin dashboard to understand where everything is located.

We suggest you explore the left-hand menu, which includes key sections such as:

• Home
• Orders
• Products
• Customers
• Content
• Analytics
• Marketing
• Discounts
• Apps
• Settings.

You should click into each section to see what actions are available and how Shopify organizes store operations. Also, if you are completely new to the platform, we suggest you pay close attention to the Home dashboard, as it shows setup checklists, warnings, and even recommends the next steps for you.

2. Add products

Next, it’s time to begin adding your products so you can build a real, usable store.

Go to Products → Add product and enter full product information, including title, description, pricing, product images, and variants such as size or color. Here is also where you assign SKUs, track inventory, and decide whether Shopify should manage stock levels.

You should aim to add at least 5-10 complete products during the trial, even if your catalog is not final. That way, you can see how products appear on the storefront, how collections work, and how products behave inside checkout, draft orders, and analytics. Otherwise, a store without products will limit your ability to test key workflows.

3. Choose & customize a theme

Once products are in place, move on to selecting and customizing a theme.

Go to Online Store → Themes, browse the free themes, and install one that matches your business type. After installation, use the theme editor to customize layouts, homepage sections, fonts, colors, and branding elements such as your logo and favicon.

Also, while customizing the theme, you should configure navigation menus, homepage sections, collection displays, and product page layouts. Doing all this during the free trial ensures that when you upgrade, your storefront can be published immediately without additional design work.

4. Configure store settings

Finally, you should configure your core store settings so your backend is fully prepared for launch.

Simply go to Settings and review areas such as Store details, Payments, Shipping and delivery, Taxes, Checkout, Customer accounts, Notifications, and Policies. Remember, even though you cannot accept real payments yet, you can still connect payment providers and define shipping zones!

In addition, it’s best to generate required legal pages (such as refund, privacy, and terms of service) and adjust checkout preferences like guest checkout and customer accounts. Though these settings are often overlooked early on, configuring them during the trial actually saves significant time later and reduces the risk of launch-day issues.

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How to Cancel Free Trial Shopify

To cancel your Shopify free trial, log into your account, go to Settings > Plan, click “Cancel trial,” then either close the store completely or continue into Shopify’s discounted $1/month phase.

Step 1. Go to Settings

From your Shopify admin dashboard, click Settings in the bottom-left corner, then select Plan.

If your store is still in the free trial period, you’ll see a Cancel Trial button. Before clicking anything, though, double-check how much trial time you have left.

Step 2. Cancel your trial

Now, click Cancel Trial. Shopify will then present two options:

• Cancel Plan: You are fully closing the store and ending the trial without moving into a paid phase.
• Start New Store: This option transitions you into phase two of Shopify’s trial, which costs $1 per month for the first 3 months.

In both cases, your store data remains recoverable if you decide to resubscribe later, so there’s no need to worry.

Step 3. Either close your store or start a new one with $1/month

3A. If you choose “Cancel Plan.”

After you select Cancel Plan, tick the checkbox “I’ve reviewed the information above” and click Continue. After that, Shopify will ask you to select a reason for closing your store from a dropdown menu.

Once you confirm your reason and click Continue, you’ll see a final Cancel Trial button; click on it to officially end your Shopify free trial and close the store. At this point, no charges will be applied, and your store will be inactive but not permanently deleted.

3B. If you choose “Start New Store.”

After clicking Start New Store, simply tick “I’ve reviewed the information above” and Continue, then select Cancel Plan.

Shopify will then redirect you to the billing page, where you’ll be asked to enter your payment information. Fill in all the necessary info, then scroll down and tick Subscribe for $1 USD to confirm the discounted offer. That’s it!

Note:

If you already know which paid plan you want, then there’s no need to cancel the trial at all. From Settings → Plan, click Choose plan (instead of Cancel Trial), then select a plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Plus. Your subscription fee will only start after the initial 3-day free trial ends.

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Other Shopify Free Trial Options Available

Besides the standard Shopify free trial available to all new users, Shopify also offers two alternative trials, one for Shopify Plus prospects and one for Black-owned businesses participating in the 1 Million Black Businesses (1MBB) program:

For Shopify Plus merchants

Businesses that are considering Shopify Plus may be eligible for a custom or extended trial, depending on their size, sales volume, and technical requirements.

However, unlike the standard free trial, this option is not publicly advertised and cannot be activated through Shopify’s regular signup flow. Instead, your team must contact Shopify’s sales or Plus team directly to discuss your specific needs.

For Black entrepreneurs

Additionally, part of its 1 Million Black Businesses (1MBB) initiative, Shopify offers an extended 120-day free trial specifically for qualifying Black-owned businesses.

This extended trial is significantly longer than Shopify’s standard offering and is designed to give entrepreneurs more runway to build, refine, and launch their stores without immediate financial pressure.

To participate in the 1MBB program and receive the 120-day trial, you must meet key eligibility criteria as follows:

• Your business must be Black-owned and operated (a defined majority ownership by Black individuals).
• Your business should be based in eligible regions (such as the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom).
• You will need to complete the application process through the official 1MBB registration portal, which usually involves a self-identification form, basic business information, and agreeing to program terms.

Once accepted into the program, you gain access to the extended 120-day Shopify trial along with additional resources such as educational content, business mentorship, community support, etc. After the extended trial ends, standard Shopify plan fees apply.

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Shopify Free Trial: FAQs

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Final Words

All in all, the Shopify free trial is a great structured opportunity to evaluate the platform. It gives you enough time to build your store, test workflows, and decide whether the platform truly fits your business needs with minimal risks!

For more tips and guidance, check out our blogs or contact LitOS directly.