Nuvemshop or Shopify in 2026: total cost of 12 months

The short answer

The 12-month total cost of an online store is the sum of the plan, the payment fee, the platform commission, apps, invoice issuance and shipping, and it is that number, not the monthly fee, that decides between Nuvemshop and Shopify. On Nuvemshop the bill is in reais and the percentage on the sale falls as the plan goes up. On Shopify the monthly fee is in dollars and, because Shopify Payments does not serve Brazil, every store here gets paid through a third-party provider. For a small or mid-sized store that sells only in Brazil, Nuvemshop is usually simpler to calculate and to run. Shopify starts to make sense when the problem is a theme, an integration or an operation the current store cannot handle, and not when the goal is only to pay less.

1. What goes into the 12-month bill

Comparing platforms by the monthly fee is the most common mistake. A store that bills R$ 20 mil a month pays more in fees on sales than in the plan, on either platform. An honest spreadsheet has six lines:

1. Plan, on the cycle you will use (monthly or annual).
2. Payment method: the gateway percentage on each sale.
3. Platform commission: the extra the platform itself charges when you use a gateway that is not its own.
4. Apps: reviews, upsell, filters, marketplace integration, dropshipping.
5. Invoice: the ERP or issuer that generates the NF-e for each order.
6. Shipping: the quoting and label app, plus the contract with the carrier.

Lines 1 to 3 change a lot from one platform to the other and have an official number published. Lines 4 to 6 depend on the vendors you choose and almost always exist on both platforms, so they go in at the price each vendor publishes on the day you build the spreadsheet. If you are still designing the whole operation, the e-commerce development page shows how I organize that survey before choosing a platform.

2. Nuvemshop in 2026: plan, Nuvem Pago and commission

The official Nuvemshop plans page, read on 05/10/2026, shows five plans and two ways of charging on a sale: with Nuvem Pago (Nuvemshop's own payment method) or with another intermediary.

Source: Nuvemshop plans and prices, read on 05/10/2026.

Three readings matter here. First, with Nuvem Pago the page indicates "Commission per sale 0%": the percentage shown is already the total cost of payment. Second, with another intermediary you pay their fee plus the plan's extra, which falls from 2% on Essencial to 0,7% on Escala. Third, the page lists unlimited products and sales on every plan and changes the number of distribution centers: 1 on Começo and on Essencial, 2 on Impulso and 3 on Escala. If you ship from more than one stock location, that weighs on the plan choice before the fee does.

The percentage in the table is for cards with payout in 30 days. The Nuvem Pago page, read on 05/10/2026, adds a fixed R$ 0,35 per card sale, charges more to receive in 14 days or in 2 days and advertises Pix at 0,99%. Anyone who sells a lot on Pix pays less than the table shows; anyone who advances the payout pays more.

The Começo plan has no monthly fee, but it has the highest percentage on the sale. The paid plans have 7 days of free trial, according to the same page.

3. Shopify in 2026: plan in dollars and the third-party fee

The Shopify pricing page for Brazil, read on 05/10/2026, charges in dollars:

Source: Shopify Brazil prices, read on 05/10/2026. The annual total is the monthly price of the annual cycle multiplied by 12.

The same page offers "3 days free, then US$ 1/month for 3 months". That lowers the first year, but it does not change the cost from the second year on, and the second year is the one you will pay for longer.

The point that confuses people coming from Nuvemshop the most is payment. Shopify Payments, Shopify's own payment processor, does not serve businesses in Brazil: the country is not on the official list of supported countries (read on 05/10/2026). So the Brazilian store always gets paid through a third-party provider, and pays two things per sale: the provider's fee (which I will call g) and Shopify's third-party transaction fee (t).

The pricing page served in Brazil only warns that "There may be third-party transaction fees if you use a third-party payment provider" and that "These fees vary according to the plan". The percentage is on the official Shopify Brazil blog (post of 16/07/2026, read on 05/10/2026):

The Help Center adds three details that change the bill (third-party transaction fees, read on 05/10/2026): the fee is on top of the provider's, it applies to products minus discounts plus taxes and shipping, and it does not come back when you refund the order. The same center tells you to check the fee for your region on the pricing page or with support (third-party payment providers, read on 05/10/2026), so confirm your plan's percentage on the first invoice or with support before signing a long contract.

g depends on the provider and on the contract you negotiate with your CNPJ, which is why it stays a variable. On how to choose the provider and the checkout, the article Shopify checkout in Brazil: native or Yampi and Cartpanda details the options, and the Shopify development page shows what I build when the choice is this platform.

4. The scenario table: plan plus fee over 12 months

To compare without inventing a number, the bill below uses only what the official sources publish. On Nuvemshop, the annual plan plus the total cost with Nuvem Pago on the year's revenue. On Shopify, the annual plan in dollars and the plan's third-party fee stay closed, and only the provider's fee (g) enters as a formula, because it depends on your contract.

Nuvemshop with Nuvem Pago (annual plan + total payment cost):

Shopify (annual plan in dollars + the plan's third-party fee + the provider's fee):

Bases: Nuvemshop plans and prices, Shopify Brazil prices and the official Shopify Brazil blog, read on 05/10/2026. Calculation: the annual plan price added to the percentage multiplied by the year's revenue. It does not include the fixed fee per sale, apps, invoices or shipping. On Shopify, the third-party fee also applies to the shipping charged to the customer, so the real amount sits a little higher.

Notice one thing: if you use an external gateway on Nuvemshop, the comparison becomes almost symmetrical. Nuvemshop's extra (2% on Essencial, 1% on Impulso, 0,7% on Escala) is very close to Shopify's third-party fee (2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0,6% on Advanced). With the same gateway on both sides, what is left of the difference is the plan in reais against the plan in dollars, and the features of each.

The break-even point between Nuvemshop plans

The table shows something the pricing page does not say out loud: the plan with the cheapest monthly fee is the most expensive past a certain revenue. With Nuvem Pago, the turning points come from the plan difference divided by the fee difference:

• Começo to Essencial: R$ 704 divided by 0,5 percentage point gives R$ 140.800 per year, about R$ 11.730 per month.
• Essencial to Impulso: R$ 969 divided by 0,5 point gives R$ 193.800 per year, about R$ 16.150 per month.
• Impulso to Escala: R$ 2.907 divided by 0,4 point gives R$ 726.750 per year, about R$ 60.560 per month.

Above each of those lines, the higher plan costs less across the year. Começo still has a feature limit (1 layout, according to the same page), so the switch to Essencial can come earlier for a reason that is not financial.

On Shopify the logic is the same. From Basic to Grow, the annual plan rises by US$ 300 and the third-party fee falls by 1 point: Grow starts to pay off when annual revenue, converted to dollars at the day's exchange rate, passes US$ 30 mil. From Grow to Advanced, that is US$ 3.120 more of plan for 0,4 point less of fee, which only closes above US$ 780 mil per year.

Nuvem Pago or another gateway on Nuvemshop

With another intermediary, Nuvemshop adds the plan's extra to that intermediary's fee. From that comes the right question for your gateway: how much does it need to charge to tie with Nuvem Pago?

• On Essencial, the external gateway needs to cost less than 2,19% (4,19% minus the extra of 2%).
• On Impulso, less than 2,69% (3,69% minus 1%).
• On Escala, less than 2,59% (3,29% minus 0,7%).

If almost all of your sales are on installment cards, compare the fee in your contract by payment method, not anyone's storefront rate.

How to close the Shopify column

For Shopify to leave the formula and become a number, you need two figures only you can get: the fee of the payment provider you will use (g), negotiated with your CNPJ, and the exchange rate on the day the card is charged. With those, compare line by line with the Nuvemshop table for your revenue. If g + t passes the total cost of the equivalent Nuvemshop plan, Shopify only pays off if it solves a problem worth more than the difference.

If you want to see this bill with your store's revenue and payment provider, send the current platform, the plan and the URL. If you have not created the Shopify store yet, talk to me before you create it: the store is born as a development store, is built ready and transferred to your name.

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5. Apps, invoices and shipping: the lines nobody adds up

These three lines often decide more than the plan, and neither platform's pricing page settles them for you.

Apps. Both have an app store, and each app has its own price and its own currency. Before comparing, list the apps your operation needs (reviews, filters, upsell, marketplace, subscription) and note the published price of each one in both app stores, with the currency. An app charged in dollars rises with the exchange rate, like the Shopify monthly fee.

Invoice. The cost of the NF-e is that of the ERP or issuer that generates the invoice for each order. Check in your ERP's documentation whether it has an official integration with both platforms, whether the integration is charged separately and whether its plan limits the number of invoices per month.

Shipping. Cart quotes, labels and tracking come from an app or a logistics service, plus the contract with the carrier. Nuvemshop limits distribution centers by plan (1, 2 or 3, according to the plans page), which matters if you ship from more than one place. On Shopify, check whether the shipping app you use today exists for the platform and serves Brazil before assuming the cost is the same.

A practical rule: if the sum of apps, ERP and shipping changes little between the two platforms, the decision goes back to the table in section 4. If it changes a lot, that sum is what decides.

6. Dropshipping: Nuvemshop or Shopify

In dropshipping you do not buy stock beforehand, but you pay the supplier, the integration app and the platform on every order. That is why each percentage point on the sale weighs directly on the margin: one extra point of fee is one cent less of margin per real sold.

Both platforms describe the model in the same basic way. Shopify defines dropshipping as the method in which "a company does not keep the products it sells in stock" and the products "are shipped directly from the supplier to the customers" (dropshipping on Shopify, read on 05/10/2026). The same page says the merchant "only pays for the items after they are sold" and advises choosing a dropshipping supplier.

Nuvemshop advises: "Connect your store to a dropshipping app" and cites national and international apps such as Drop Nacional, Reserva INK, Printful, Dropify, Dropi and 3Cliques (dropshipping on Nuvemshop, read on 05/10/2026). The same page publishes conditions for some of them: Dropi with an initial option of 5% per transaction and a limit of ten products, or a version at R$ 250 a month; Drop Nacional with a Profissional plan at R$ 89 a month and a limit of one thousand products.

For dropshipping from a national supplier, the question is whether your supplier's app exists on the platform. If it exists on both, the table in section 4 decides. If it exists on only one, the decision is already made. Add the dropshipping app's fee to the platform percentage: if the app charges 5% per transaction and you are on Essencial with Nuvem Pago (4,19%), the variable cost lands near 9,2% of the sale before the product and the shipping.

7. Who migrates in both directions, and why

Migration happens in both directions, and the reason is rarely the monthly fee.

From Nuvemshop to Shopify usually go the merchants who hit a limit on theme, checkout or integration: they need logic in the checkout, an app that exists only on the App Store, international sales, or an operation with several systems talking over an API. The bill here is not "Shopify is cheaper", because with a monthly fee in dollars and a third-party fee to pay, often it is not. The bill is whether the new feature generates more margin than the extra cost. If that is your decision, the critical step is the URL map, detailed in migrating from Nuvemshop to Shopify without losing SEO.

From Shopify to Nuvemshop usually go the merchants who sell only in Brazil, use few apps, want to pay the platform in reais and prefer an ecosystem with national integrations ready. In that case, the monthly fee in dollars and the sum of apps in dollars become a cost with no counterpart. The same SEO care applies in the opposite direction: every old URL needs a redirect to the new one.

Whoever comes from another Brazilian platform and is in this same doubt can also compare with the Tray case in Tray vs Shopify in 2026, which looks at theme limits and integration.

Migration has its own cost that shows up in no plan table: catalog, customers, redirects, a theme rebuilt, apps reconfigured, the team relearning the admin and a few weeks of doubled attention. That cost needs to fit inside the annual difference you calculated in section 4. If the difference is small, the migration does not pay for itself.

8. When to stay on Nuvemshop

This section exists because the right answer for many stores is to change nothing. Stay on Nuvemshop when:

• You sell only in Brazil and you do not use a feature it does not have. If the list of the store's problems brings no item that Shopify solves and Nuvemshop does not, migrating is moving the same problem to another place.
• Your margin is tight and the bill in section 4 does not close in Shopify's favor. With a third-party fee of 2% on Basic added to the provider's fee and a monthly fee in dollars, you only know that Shopify comes out cheaper after you have the g from your contract. Without that, there is no basis to switch.
• A plan adjustment solves it. Many stores on Começo or Essencial pay more than they should because they passed the break-even point and did not move up a plan. Changing plans happens inside the same admin; migrating platforms does not.
• The operation depends on national apps that work well today. An ERP, shipping and dropshipping that are integrated and stable are worth money. Rebuilding those integrations on another platform has a cost and a risk.
• Nobody on the team is going to own the transition. A migration without an owner is the most common way to lose sales and a Google position in the same month.

Before thinking about a new platform, run the table in section 4 with your real revenue from the last 12 months and see whether you are on the right Nuvemshop plan. Sometimes the savings you were looking for are right there.

Frequently asked questions

Nuvemshop vs Shopify: which one should you sign up for?

It depends on the 12-month bill and on the problem you need to solve. For a store that sells only in Brazil, with a simple operation and a tight margin, Nuvemshop is usually the easier choice to calculate: a plan in reais and a total cost published per plan. Shopify makes sense when you need a theme, checkout, app or international-sales feature the other one does not cover, and when the provider's fee added to the plan's third-party fee (2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0,6% on Advanced) fits your margin.

What is the best platform for an online store?

There is no single answer. The right platform is the one with the lowest total cost for your revenue, with the apps and integrations your operation already uses, and without a technical limit on your path for the next two years. Build the six-line spreadsheet from section 1 with your own numbers before you choose.

How much does Shopify charge per month?

On the Shopify Brazil pricing page, read on 05/10/2026, Basic costs US$ 19 per month on the monthly cycle or US$ 14 on the annual; Grow, US$ 52 or US$ 39; Advanced, US$ 399 or US$ 299; and Plus starts at US$ 2.300 per month. The charge is in dollars and, because in Brazil the store gets paid through a third-party provider, the third-party transaction fee still comes in: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0,6% on Advanced and 0,2% on Plus, according to the official Shopify Brazil blog (16/07/2026), added to the provider's fee.

Does Nuvemshop charge a commission on sales?

With Nuvem Pago, the plans page indicates a commission per sale of 0% and a total payment cost of 4,69% to 3,29%, depending on the plan. With another payment method, an extra of 2% on Essencial, 1% on Impulso and 0,7% on Escala comes in, added to the intermediary's fee (read on 05/10/2026).

Can you use Shopify Payments in Brazil?

No. Brazil is not on the official list of countries supported by Shopify Payments, read on 05/10/2026. The Brazilian store gets paid through a third-party payment provider, and the plan's third-party transaction fee needs to enter your bill.

Conclusion

Between Nuvemshop and Shopify, what decides is the percentage on revenue, added to apps, invoices and shipping, and not the monthly fee. Nuvemshop publishes the total cost per plan in reais; Shopify charges the plan in dollars and adds the plan's third-party fee to the fee of the provider you hire. Migration only pays for itself when it solves a problem worth more than the annual difference, and often the savings are in changing plans, not platforms. The e-commerce development service starts from exactly that bill, and the Shopify store: creation, migration and theme page shows what changes when the decision is Shopify. For other cost and migration comparisons, see all the articles. If you want to know whether your store fits this bill, send the current platform, the plan and the store URL. If you have not created the Shopify store yet, talk to me before you create it: the store is born as a development store, is built ready and transferred to your name.

Talk about the project