How the Trial Works
Signing up takes an email address. No card, no billing details, no commitment.
- Length: 3 days.
- Card required: No, not to start.
- Access: Full admin. Products, themes, navigation, shipping, taxes, domains, apps.
- Selling: Disabled. Checkout does not open until you choose a plan.
- After: $1/month for three months, then standard plan pricing.
That last point is the one people miss. The trial is short, but the cheap period after it is not — you get roughly 90 days of a fully working store for about $3.
The Credits Offer: 1% of Sales Back
Alongside the $1/month introductory pricing, Shopify currently runs a subscription credits promotion: you earn 1% of your sales back as credit against your Shopify bill. It is easy to dismiss as marketing, and for a store doing $500 a month it more or less is. For a store that scales quickly in its first half-year, it is real money.
| Plan | Maximum credit | Sales needed to reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $5,000 | $500,000 |
| Grow | $7,500 | $750,000 |
| Advanced | $10,000 | $1,000,000 |
| Plus | Not included | |
The details that decide whether it is worth anything to you:
- It is credit, not cash. It offsets your subscription bill. You cannot withdraw it, and it does not pay for apps.
- It accrues over your first six months, or until you hit your plan's cap.
- It requires Shopify Payments. If you process through an external gateway you are already paying the third-party transaction fee, and now you are forgoing the credits as well — see transaction fees explained.
- There is a minimum. You need to reach roughly $1,000 in sales before credits become usable.
- Amounts are shown in your local currency. The figures above are US dollars; Canadian merchants, for instance, see a CA$13,000 headline figure.
What it is actually worth. A store doing $10,000 a month reaches $60,000 in sales over six months and earns about $600 in credit — which covers roughly seven months of the Grow plan. A store doing $2,000 a month earns about $120, or a bit over three months of Basic. Neither is life-changing, but both exceed what you pay Shopify during the promotional period, which makes the honest summary this: for the first six months, your plan can genuinely cost close to nothing.
Shopify has run this promotion in several forms and the terms change, so confirm the current version at signup rather than relying on any article, including this one.
What You Can Realistically Do in Three Days
Three days is enough to answer "is this the right platform?" It is not enough to launch a considered store. Use it in this order:
- Day 1 — load real products. Not placeholders. Three or four real ones with real photos, real prices and real descriptions. You are testing how your actual catalogue feels in the admin.
- Day 2 — pick a free theme and set the homepage. Do not buy a theme yet. Establish whether the free themes can express your brand; usually they can.
- Day 3 — configure shipping and tax, and check the mobile view. Shipping is where most platform frustrations surface. If Shopify's shipping model fits your business, the rest will fit too.
What not to do: do not install fifteen apps, do not write all your content, and do not buy a domain on day one. Those belong in the $1 period, when you have decided.
What Happens When the Trial Ends
Nothing is deleted. The storefront becomes unavailable to visitors and the admin prompts you to select a plan. Your products, theme customisations, settings and content all remain exactly as you left them.
If you come back a week later, or a month later, and pick a plan, the store returns as it was. There is no penalty for letting a trial lapse and no need to start again from scratch.
If you do choose a plan, you can start on monthly billing and switch to annual later; the switch is prorated. There is no reason to commit to a year during a trial.
Domains, Data and What Carries Over
| Thing | Carries over from the trial? |
|---|---|
| Products, collections, images | Yes |
| Theme and customisations | Yes |
| Shipping, tax and payment settings | Yes |
| Apps you installed | Yes, though their own trials run independently |
| Your .myshopify.com address | Yes — and it is permanent, so choose it thoughtfully |
| A custom domain | Yes, but buy it once you have committed |
The .myshopify.com subdomain you pick at signup cannot be changed afterwards. It is mostly invisible to
customers once you connect a real domain, but it appears in some integrations, so avoid something you will regret.
A Three-Day Trial Checklist
If you want to get the most out of the window, work through this:
- Add at least three real products with real photography
- Choose a free theme and set the homepage sections
- Configure at least one shipping zone with real rates
- Place a test order to see the full checkout as a customer sees it
- Open the store on your own phone — most of your traffic will be mobile
- Install one or two free apps to see how the app model works, not fifteen
- Decide: does this fit how the business actually operates?
When you are setting up a store properly, our new store setup workflow covers the conversion basics worth having in place before you send traffic anywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Shopify's 1% credits offer?
Shopify credits 1% of your sales back against your subscription bill during your first six months, up to $5,000 on Basic, $7,500 on Grow and $10,000 on Advanced. It is credit against the plan rather than cash, it does not apply to apps, and it requires Shopify Payments. Shopify Plus is not included.
How much are the Shopify credits actually worth?
A store doing $10,000 per month reaches $60,000 in sales over six months and earns about $600 in credit, which covers roughly seven months of the Grow plan. A store doing $2,000 per month earns about $120. Combined with the $1/month introductory pricing, that means the subscription can cost close to nothing over the first six months.
How long is the Shopify free trial in 2026?
Three days. Shopify shortened the trial from 14 days, and pairs it with an introductory offer of $1 per month for the first three months, so the practical evaluation period is closer to 90 days for about $3 in total.
Do I need a credit card to start the Shopify trial?
No. You can start with just an email address. A payment method is only required when you choose a plan at the end of the trial.
Can I sell during the free trial?
No. Checkout stays disabled until you select a plan. You can build the entire store and place test orders, but customers cannot buy until the store is on a paid plan.
What happens to my store when the trial ends?
The storefront becomes unavailable to visitors and the store pauses. Nothing is deleted — your products, theme, settings and content are all retained, and the store returns exactly as it was when you select a plan, whether that is the next day or the next month.
Can I extend the Shopify free trial?
There is no self-serve extension. The $1 per month introductory offer serves the same purpose at very low cost, giving you three months on a fully working store rather than three more days on a disabled one.
Should I buy a domain during the trial?
Wait. Connect a domain once you have decided to keep the store. The .myshopify.com address works for building and testing, and it is what your store runs on until a custom domain is connected.
💡 Ready to put this into practice? Shopify's free 3-day trial — then $1/month for 3 months, plus 1% of sales back in credits — is long enough to set it up and see the numbers. Start your free trial → (affiliate link)