How To Pause Your Shopify Store

What Is the Shopify Pause and Build Plan?

The Pause and Build plan is Shopify's reduced-rate option for store owners who need a break from active selling. At $9/month, it's a middle ground between paying for a full plan and cancelling your subscription entirely.

Here's exactly what changes when you switch to Pause and Build:

• Checkout is disabled: Customers who visit your store can browse products and read pages, but the "Add to Cart" and checkout buttons are hidden. No new orders can be placed.
• Your storefront remains live: Your domain, SEO rankings, and product pages stay publicly accessible. Google continues to crawl and index your site.
• Full admin access: You can update products, redesign pages, write blog posts, and configure apps as normal. The pause only affects the customer-facing checkout.
• Apps continue billing: Third-party app subscriptions do not pause automatically. You'll need to manually pause or cancel each app to avoid ongoing charges.
• Shopify Email and analytics remain active: You can still access reports and send email campaigns to your list during the pause period.

Real Cost Breakdown When Your Store Is Paused

The $9/month plan fee is just the starting point. Most merchants are surprised to find they're spending significantly more once you account for apps that keep billing. Here's a realistic example for a store running common paid apps:

Cost Item	Monthly Cost While Paused	Notes
Pause and Build plan	$9	Replaces your current plan cost
Review app (e.g., Judge.me)	$15	Does not pause automatically
Email marketing (e.g., Klaviyo)	$0-$45+	Klaviyo free tier stays free; paid tiers still bill
SEO app (e.g., Plug In SEO)	$20	Still runs in the background
Loyalty program (e.g., Smile)	$49	Customers can't earn points, but you still pay
Subscription app (e.g., Recharge)	$99	No new subscriptions, but app still charges you
Total (example store)	$192/month	vs. $39/month Basic when selling

The lesson: before you pause, audit every app in your Shopify admin under Apps. For each app, visit its settings page and cancel or pause the subscription individually. Shopify cannot cancel third-party app subscriptions on your behalf.

When to Pause vs. Cancel vs. Downgrade

These are not interchangeable decisions. Use this table to pick the right option for your situation:

Situation	Best Option	Cost
Taking a seasonal break of 1-6 months, plan to reopen	Pause and Build	$9/month + any active apps
Major store redesign, don't want to lose your URL/SEO	Pause and Build (+ password protect)	$9/month
Selling only through social media, no storefront needed	Downgrade to Starter	$5/month
Permanently closing the store	Cancel subscription	$0 (after export)
Short break (under 2 weeks) with some orders still coming in	Stay on current plan	Your current plan fee
You have an active Shopify Capital loan	Cannot pause; stay on current plan	Your current plan fee

Does Pausing Affect Annual Plan Billing?

If you're on an annual Shopify plan (which saves up to 25% versus monthly billing), pausing does not refund the unused portion of your annual subscription. You'll switch to the $9/month Pause and Build billing, but the annual plan credit is not applied.

Practical implication: if you paid $421 upfront for an annual Basic plan and you pause after 4 months, you don't get the remaining 8 months credited toward the pause fee. You simply switch to $9/month billing from the pause date forward.

If you know you'll need to pause for a significant portion of the year, monthly billing gives you more flexibility to pause without losing prepaid credit.

What Seasonal Businesses Actually Do

Seasonal stores that only sell for part of the year (holiday decor, summer apparel, tax season services) typically follow one of two patterns:

• Short season (3-4 months active): Run on a full plan during peak season, pause for the off-season. Total annual cost on Basic: roughly $160 for 8 paused months ($9 x 8) plus $156 for 4 active months ($39 x 4) = $316/year vs. $468/year staying on Basic year-round. Savings: $152/year before app costs.
• Long season (8-9 months active): The math is less compelling. Pausing for 3-4 months saves $90-$120/year, which may not be worth the admin overhead of pausing apps and reactivating everything each cycle.

The break-even point is roughly when you'd be pausing for 4+ months per year. Below that, the hassle of managing app pauses often outweighs the savings.

What Happens to Subscription Product Customers?

If you sell subscription products through a Shopify app like Recharge, Bold Subscriptions, or Appstle, pausing your store creates a separate problem: your subscription app may still try to process recurring charges for existing subscribers even though the checkout is disabled.

Here's how each scenario plays out:

• Active subscriber renewal dates hit during the pause: Most subscription apps will still attempt to charge the customer's saved payment method on their renewal date, even while the store is paused. The payment may succeed, but the fulfillment is now in limbo since your store isn't actively shipping.
• What you need to do: Log in to your subscription app (Recharge, Bold, etc.) and either pause all active subscriptions individually, or use the bulk pause feature if your app supports it. Do not rely on Shopify's Pause and Build to stop subscription billing automatically.
• If you don't pause subscriptions: Customers will be charged, orders may be created in your admin, and you'll face support tickets from subscribers wondering why they were billed for orders that haven't shipped.
• Notify subscribers separately: Before pausing, send a dedicated email to your subscriber list explaining the pause, when billing will be suspended, and when they can expect to resume. This is separate from your general customer notice.

If you're unsure whether your subscription app supports bulk pausing, contact their support team before activating Pause and Build. Some apps have an explicit "pause store" feature; others require manual management of each subscriber record.

How to Tell Customers You're Pausing

When you activate Pause and Build, customers who visit your store will see a banner or message indicating checkout is unavailable, depending on your theme. But that passive notice isn't enough. Customers who had items in their cart, planned to reorder, or recently discovered your store will have no context. Proactive communication reduces abandoned customers and protects your reputation.

Here are two ready-to-use email templates you can send through Shopify Email or your existing email marketing platform:

Template 1: Seasonal Pause

Subject: We're taking a short break: here's what that means for you

Hi [First Name],

We're taking a planned break from [store name] from [start date] through [return date]. Our online store will be in view-only mode during this time, you can browse but won't be able to place orders.

We'll be back accepting orders on [return date]. If there's something specific you want to make sure you don't miss, reply to this email and we'll hold it for you when we reopen.

Thank you for being a customer. See you soon.

[Your name]

Template 2: Redesign / Maintenance Pause

Subject: [Store name] is getting a refresh: we'll be back soon

Hi [First Name],

We're in the middle of rebuilding [store name] and temporarily pausing new orders while we work on the update. Our current store will stay up so you can browse and bookmark items.

We expect to reopen fully by [date]. We'll send you an email the moment we're back. In the meantime, if you have an urgent order or question, reach us at [email].

Thank you for your patience.

[Your name]

Send this email at least 3 days before pausing so customers aren't caught off guard by a suddenly inactive checkout. If you run any active promotions that expire during the pause, mention them in the email and either extend them to the reopen date or issue codes manually for affected customers.

Pause and Build vs. Cancelling Your Shopify Subscription

These are two very different actions. Pause and Build keeps everything intact at $9/month. Cancellation shuts your store down completely. Your storefront goes offline, your domain stops resolving (unless transferred), and restarting requires paying a new plan upfront.

Choose Pause and Build if you're taking a seasonal break, handling a personal situation, or doing a major redesign. Cancel only if you're permanently closing the store, and even then, export your customer data and order history first.

Does Pausing Your Shopify Store Affect Your Google Rankings?

No. Pausing does not hurt your SEO. Your storefront stays publicly accessible, your URLs return 200 status codes, and Google continues crawling and indexing your pages normally. The Pause and Build plan does not trigger any penalty or deindex signal.

The one SEO risk is inactivity: if you stop publishing blog content or updating product pages for months, your pages may gradually lose freshness signals. But the act of pausing itself has no impact on rankings. Stores that pause for 30-60 days and then reactivate typically see rankings resume at the same position within 1-2 weeks.

What does hurt SEO is cancelling. If you cancel and your storefront goes offline, Google will eventually deindex your pages. Pause and Build avoids this entirely because your site stays live.

Eligibility Requirements

Not every store can access Pause and Build. You're eligible if:

• You've been on a paid Shopify plan for at least 60 days after your free trial ended
• You're on a standard Shopify plan (Basic, Grow, or Advanced)
• You do not have an active Shopify Capital loan
• You are not on Shopify Plus (Plus stores cannot use Pause and Build. Contact your Shopify Plus account manager for alternative options.)

How to Pause Your Shopify Store: Step-by-Step

1. Log in to your Shopify admin at admin.shopify.com.
2. Click Settings (bottom-left of your admin sidebar).
3. Select Plan from the Settings menu.
4. Click Pause or cancel subscription.
5. On the next screen, select Pause and Build. Do not select "Cancel subscription" unless you intend to close the store permanently.
6. Review the summary: confirm the $9/month charge and that checkout will be disabled.
7. Click Switch to Pause and Build to confirm.

The change takes effect immediately. Your storefront goes into browse-only mode right away. Your next billing date will reflect the $9/month charge.

How Long Can You Stay on Pause and Build?

Shopify does not publish a maximum duration for the Pause and Build plan. In practice, most merchants stay paused for 1-6 months. There are no documented cases of Shopify automatically cancelling a store for remaining on Pause and Build too long.

That said, there are two practical considerations:

• App costs stack up: If you forget to cancel third-party apps, you'll pay app subscription fees on top of the $9/month. A store with 5-10 active apps could spend $50-$200/month even while paused.
• Annual billing saves more: If you know you'll be paused for 6+ months and plan to reopen, consider whether cancelling your full plan and switching to Shopify Starter ($5/month) for the interim makes more financial sense than staying on Pause and Build indefinitely.

Alternatives to Pause and Build

Pause and Build isn't the only option when you need to reduce costs or temporarily step back from active selling:

• Shopify Starter plan ($5/month): If you only sell through social media, WhatsApp, or direct links rather than a full storefront, the Starter plan gives you Buy Buttons and checkout links without a full store. It's cheaper than Pause and Build, but you lose your storefront entirely.
• Password-protect your store: On any paid plan, you can enable a password page (Online Store > Preferences > Password protection) so only people with the password can view the store. This keeps the store "running" while making it effectively private. No cost reduction, but useful if you want to do a private redesign.
• Deactivate specific products: Instead of pausing the whole store, you can set all products to "Draft" status. The store stays open, prices and checkout work normally, but no products are visible or purchasable. Useful if you're between product seasons.

For a full breakdown of what's included at each price tier before you decide, see the complete Shopify subscription plans comparison.