Is prepayment required before fully setting up a service?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Requirement to choose a paid plan before fully setting up a Shopify store, and whether a “dummy domain” can be used without paying.

Key details provided by Shopify support:

  • Free trial is 3 days; it’s intended as an introduction, not enough time to fully build a store.
  • After the 3-day trial, an “extended trial” is available at $1 USD/month for 3 months on Starter, Basic, Shopify, or Advanced plans (total $3 USD before regular plan pricing begins).
  • You can “pause” the store after that, which disables checkout but allows continued setup at $9 USD/month.

Implications for setup without full payment:

  • No explicit “dummy domain” option was confirmed. However, you can keep building your store at low cost via the extended trial and/or by pausing (checkout disabled while you configure).

Open issues and unresolved concerns:

  • A participant reported being charged $41.34 for a 3-day trial; no explanation or resolution was provided in the thread.

Status: Options to minimize costs while building were outlined, but the dummy domain question and the billing concern remain unresolved.

Summarized with AI on December 15. AI used: gpt-5.
1

At the moment I’m using Wix and I could set up everything (on dummy domain) before selecting a plan and start selling.

I’ve registred an account here and after 4 days I have to select a plan… and will take a month or two to set up everything for each country and I have to pay already???

Is there no option to have a dummy domain before everything is set up???

2

Hi, @MFaganel . I’m happy to help you out with this!

The Shopify free trial is meant to be more of an introduction to the platform and the features available, rather than the time it will take to fully create your online store. That being said, we do have options to help you keep your costs down while you’re still setting up your shop.

Our free trial at the moment is a 3 day free trial, but when this free trial is done you have access to an “extended trial” of $1 USD/month for 3 months if you’ve chosen the Starter, Basic, Shopify, or Advanced plan. This means you can work on your shop for 3 months while only paying $3 USD in total on your Shopify subscription. Once those 3 months are done the regular cost of the plan you choose will begin. At this time you’d also have the option of pausing your store. Doing this will disable your checkout, but you can still set up your online store at a reduced cost of $9 USD/month. You can learn more about pausing your store on this page if you’re interested. You can also learn more about our plans and pricing here.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this! If you have any questions about getting started I can help you out with that as well.

1 Like
3

I paid 41.34 for just 3 days trial?