I woke up at 1am last month from a troubled sleep after a stressed merchant in Utrecht emailed me at that ungodly hour. She’s running a decent sized apparel store with about 400 SKUs on Shopify and horrified by the $27,60o per year price to upgrade to Plus for the combined listings feature. Her Shopify collection pages look terrible, her conversions are falling off and she’s willing to pay through the nose for a single feature to fix it.
I told her to wait. There is a much cheaper way. This post explains the breakdown of each tier, the numbers behind each tier, and the math of exactly how much you’ll save by just not getting Plus for one super dumb feature.
Rubik Combined Listings comes in 4 flavors, with support for most small stores going through the free version, and paid versions which top out at $50 per month. However, Plus version costs are completely silly compared to the regular paid versions.
In this post
- What Shopify Plus actually costs
- Rubik pricing tiers in detail
- The savings math
- When the free tier is enough
- When to upgrade
- FAQ
What Shopify Plus actually costs
Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 per year on the revenue-based pricing for big merchants on the standard plan. The plan climbs past $40,000 per year. You can only create native combined listings on the Plus plans. This feature is only available on the Plus plans and not available on Basic, Shopify or Advanced plans.
Plus offers more than just combined combined shop listings. Plus offers checkout customisation, Shopify Functions, expanded Shopify API limits, launchpad and more. But if everything you need is already offered on Advanced and the sole reason you are interested in Plus is for the feature of combined listings, that will cost you $2,300 per month for a feature that costs nothing or up to $50 elsewhere. Silly?
Native Shopify combined listings has a limit of 2048 variants per group and will only function as a variant redirect. See Shopify combined listings explained for more information on combined listings, or Rubik vs Shopify native combined listings for our take on the tradeoffs. Unfortunately, native combined listings on Shopify have many limitations when compared to combined listings offered as apps.
Rubik pricing tiers in detail
| Tier | Price | Groups | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 5 groups | All swatch types, collection swatches, product page swatches, page builder support |
| Starter | $10/mo | 100 groups | Everything in Free plus AI auto-grouping, Magic Fill AI color detection |
| Advanced | $30/mo | 500 groups | Everything in Starter plus bulk import/export, higher priority support |
| Premium | $50/mo | 5000 groups | Everything in Advanced, unlimited-ish scale for big catalogs |
Annual billing discounts your plan by 17% for each paid plan. The pricing is flat. It does not scale with your Shopify payment plan or your store’s revenue or products. The only factor is the number of groups you’re hosting.
What is a group? A group is a set of linked separate products. ie. A basic t-shirt and an oversized t-shirt might be separate products, but if you have 8 colors and each color is a separate product, those 8 products form 1 group. Free tier includes 5 groups. Starter includes 100. Pro includes 500.
The savings math
So you’re on the Advanced Shopify plan at $399/month. Now you need Combined Listings on the Shopify Product Report. There are 2 ways to do this.
- Upgrade to Plus: $2,300/mo. Delta: $1,901/mo. Annual: $22,812 extra.
- Install Rubik Advanced: $30/mo. Delta: $30. Annual: $360.
That’s $22,452 in savings over one year, or $67,356 in savings over three years. Enough to hire a junior developer in some markets. All to achieve the exact same look on the storefront.
And honestly? The Rubik experience is better on the front-end side. Native combined listings redirect to the child product but with Rubik you keep the experience on 1 page with swatches that swap out the different variants as you compare the colors side by side. A much better UX for customers comparing products.
When the free tier is enough
5 groups is tiny. But for some stores, it is probably sufficient. For stores that sell using a hero product priced in a high margin category that is offered to customers in 5 or fewer color families, Color Designs on Free Covers is FREE. For stores that are solo and selling in one product category, Color Designs on Free Covers is FREE. For small niche shops, FREE probably covers you.
I convinced my baker friend to shift into a 12 product ceramics shop. 3 products with 4 colors each = 3 groups of products on the collection page. She pays zero for this feature. Her Plus collection page looks just like this. Her conversion rate has gone up 11% since adding swatches. Nothing else has changed.
When to upgrade
Upgrade to Starter ($10) if you have more than 5 groups or want to use Magic Fill which is an AI feature that auto-groups your products. Just imagine having to manually connect 100 products (like boots, shoes and sandals) together to make colour groups. Now you just click one button and with Magic Fill your entire store can be organised in just one click. Read AI product grouping.
Jump to Advanced ($30) when you pass 100 groups. That is usually when bulk import/export starts getting relevant, because by then you are juggling a large catalog.
Premium ($50) is for large stores, multi-brand operations, or stores with 500+ product groups. See bulk grouping at scale for context.
If my advice in 8 isn’t clear then go with the free one and only pay when you reach the group cap. Everything can be undone and you won’t lose anything by going down a tier and the groups will remain linked (assuming you have reached the cap to downgrade in the first place).
See the live demo store, watch the tutorial video, or read the getting started guide.
FAQ
How much does Shopify combined listings cost?
Native Shopify combined listings require Shopify Plus, which starts at $2,300 / mo. Third-party apps like Rubik Combined Listings offer the same feature starting at $0 / mo for the free plan.
Is Rubik Combined Listings free?
Yes. SwatchIt! provides a free tier for product image customization that includes 5 product groups, all swatch types, and all SwatchIt! core features. Forever free. No time limits. No credit card required.
What counts as a group?
A group is a set of separate products that are treated as different variants of each other. If you were to sell a white shirt, a black shirt, a red shirt, a blue shirt, a yellow shirt and a green shirt as separate products, then these 6 products would make up 1 group.
Does pricing scale with my Shopify plan?
No. Rubik pricing is tiered by group count. Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus merchants all pay the same tier price for No. Rubik groups.
Can I save with annual billing?
Yes. Annual plans save 17% on all paid tiers.
What happens if I exceed my group limit?
You have to upgrade before you can make new groups, but existing groups still work fine.
Is upgrading to Shopify Plus worth it just for combined listings?
You’d actually be better off if “combined listings” was the ONLY feature that Plus offers. There are many apps that do that for about $50. What’s the point of paying thousands for Plus when you could have a better front-end UX and some very basic features for a fraction of the cost?
