Most merchants inflate lifetime value by using revenue instead of margin and by ignoring what the platform itself costs at each subscription tier, so the usual quick formula overstates what a customer is actually worth.
Most merchants get LTV wrong in one specific way. They multiply average order value by purchase frequency by customer lifespan and call the result lifetime value, but that number is revenue, not value. It ignores what the platform itself takes off every transaction, and it ignores the fixed monthly cost of running the store at whatever tier the business sits on. A customer who generates a large revenue figure on paper can still be worth less than expected once card rates and subscription fees are subtracted, and those two costs are not the same across plans.
The standard formula is average order value times orders per year times years retained. That gives a top-line number. To turn it into something closer to real value, subtract the card processing fee per order and divide the monthly subscription cost across the customers active that month. Shopify’s own pricing page, loaded on September 5, 2026, lists the card rate for the Basic plan as 2% + €0.25 EUR on top of a €24 monthly fee. Every order run through that plan carries both costs, and neither shows up in a formula built purely on revenue.
Shopify’s four visible tiers carry different fixed costs and different card rates, and both move independently. The table below is read directly from the pricing page as loaded on September 5, 2026.
| Plan | Monthly price | Card rate |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | €24 /mo | 2% + €0.25 EUR |
| Grow | €69 /mo | 1.8% + €0.25 EUR |
| Advanced | €289 /mo | 1.6% + €0.25 EUR |
| Plus | from €2,100 /mo | not listed in the facts |
A customer who places identical orders at an identical average order value returns more net margin on Grow than on Basic, purely because the card rate drops from 2% + €0.25 EUR to 1.8% + €0.25 EUR. That difference compounds across every order a repeat customer places, so two stores with identical revenue-based LTV can have different real LTV simply because they sit on different plans.
Shopify’s pricing page states a 3 day free trial followed by €1 a month for three months. A store that starts calculating LTV during that window is working with platform costs far below the €24 Basic rate it will pay afterward. Anyone building a cohort model that starts on day one of a new store needs to treat the first roughly ninety days as an outlier period for platform cost, then recalculate once the account rolls onto standard pricing. Folding the discounted months into a full-year average will make early LTV look better than it will be once the store is paying full price.
The card rate is a per-transaction cost, so it scales with volume and shows up cleanly per order. The monthly plan fee is fixed regardless of order count, which means it has to be divided by the number of active customers in that period rather than subtracted per order. This matters most at the top end. Shopify Plus starts at €2,100 a month according to the pricing page, compared with €289 a month for Advanced. A merchant considering that jump needs to know how many customers and how much LTV per customer are needed before €2,100 a month stops being a drag on net value and starts being justified by volume the lower tiers cannot handle. The pricing page does not give a customer count at which that becomes worthwhile, so that threshold has to come from the merchant’s own numbers, not from the platform’s list price.
Build the LTV number from your own average order value and order frequency, then subtract the card rate and monthly fee for the plan you actually run, using the figures above rather than an industry average. Recalculate whenever you change plans or when the introductory €1 a month period ends, because both events shift the cost side of the formula without changing anything on the revenue side.
Multiply average order value by average number of orders per customer per year, then multiply by how many years a customer stays active. That gives revenue-based LTV, which is the number most people quote. The number that actually matters is that figure minus platform fees, because a store on Shopify's Basic plan is already paying €24 a month plus 2% + €0.25 EUR per card transaction before any margin is counted. Subtract those costs from revenue per order before multiplying, and the LTV figure will be lower but honest.
Because the card processing rate is not the same across plans. Basic charges 2% + €0.25 EUR, Grow charges 1.8% + €0.25 EUR, and Advanced charges 1.6% + €0.25 EUR. A customer who places the same ten orders a year at the same average order value returns a different margin depending on which rate applies, so LTV calculated on revenue alone hides a real cost difference between plans.
Shopify's pricing page lists a 3 day free trial followed by €1 a month for three months, so a store in its first ninety days is paying a fraction of the €24 Basic rate. Any LTV model built on that early window will understate true platform cost once the store rolls onto full pricing, so it is worth recalculating after the discounted period ends rather than trusting the first quarter's numbers.
Plus starts at €2,100 a month, which is a fixed cost that has to be spread across every customer rather than deducted per order the way card rates are. A merchant moving from Advanced at €289 a month to Plus at €2,100 a month needs a much larger customer base or a much higher LTV per customer before that fixed jump makes sense, and the calculator below treats that monthly fee as a separate line rather than folding it into the per-order rate.
The facts here don't include an order-frequency benchmark, so this article does not supply one. Pull the number from your own order history rather than borrowing an industry average, because the LTV formula is only as honest as the inputs, and an invented frequency number would fail the same check that platform fees are held to.