The verdict
If you sell physical products, especially both online and in person, Shopify is the safest pick for most Canadian businesses. Pricing is in CAD, Interac works in person, and the checkout is hard to beat. If you mostly sell services, bookings or content, it is more store than you need.
Good
- CAD pricing and CAD card rates, from 2.8% + 30¢ online on Basic
- In-person selling with Interac at 15¢ per payment
- Canonical tags, sitemap, robots.txt and SSL handled automatically
- Themes include product schema for rich results in Google
- Publicly traded, including on the Toronto Stock Exchange
Watch out for
- An extra 2% to 0.2% on every order if you use another payment provider
- Apps add monthly fees that grow quietly
- Grow and Advanced cost far more than Basic for small rate savings
- Customizing robots.txt is unsupported and Shopify warns it can cost all your traffic
- More than a service business or a blog needs
Is Shopify legit?
Yes. Shopify is a large public company; its investor FAQ covers its stock listings, including the Toronto Stock Exchange. It started in Ottawa, though its investor FAQ now lists its principal executive office in Las Vegas, Nevada (investor FAQ). For a Canadian store the practical points are the CAD pricing, CAD card rates and in-person Interac support, not where the head office sits.
Pricing in short
Basic is $37 a month paid yearly ($49 monthly), Grow $99 ($132), Advanced $389 ($517), all CAD before GST/HST. Card rates fall as you move up, but slowly: Grow's lower rate only covers its higher price at about $372,000 a year in online card sales. Full detail on Shopify pricing in Canada.
Search and SEO
Shopify does the technical basics for you. According to its help centre, it adds canonical tags automatically, generates sitemap.xml and robots.txt, turns SSL on by default, and its themes include product schema. You can edit titles, meta descriptions and URLs for products, collections, pages and posts, and set up 301 redirects when products are discontinued.
The one sharp edge: you can customize robots.txt by adding a robots.txt.liquid template to your theme, but Shopify calls it an unsupported customization that its support cannot help with, and warns that incorrect use can result in loss of all traffic (help). Most stores should leave the default alone.
Who should pick something else
- A service business with no products: a Squarespace or WordPress site costs less and does what you need.
- A content-led site where articles bring the traffic: WordPress gives you more control over content structure.
- A store with heavy custom logic (complex configurators, per-customer pricing) may outgrow themes and apps and need custom work.
Getting out
Products export as a CSV file (help), which most other platforms can import. Your theme and apps do not come with you, so a move means a new design and replacing each app's job. Plan the URL redirects before you switch so your Google rankings follow.
Questions people ask
Is Shopify good for a Canadian small business?
For a business selling physical products, yes. Pricing and card rates are in CAD, it handles in-person sales with Interac, and the technical SEO basics are automatic. For a service business, it is usually more than you need.
Is Shopify a Canadian company?
Shopify started in Ottawa and its shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, among others. Its investor FAQ lists its principal executive office in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Is Shopify good for SEO?
Yes for the basics: automatic canonical tags, sitemap, robots.txt, SSL and product schema. Rankings still depend on your collection and product copy, titles and descriptions, which you write.
Sources
Each checked November 8, 2026. Platforms change prices often; their own page is the final word.