How to cancel Shopify without losing your store data

Before you cancel: a checklist

1. Export your data. Download your products, customers, and orders as CSV files. Shopify recommends this before closing a store (Shopify Help Center).
2. Back up your theme. Download a copy so you keep your design and any custom code.
3. Decide what happens to your domain. If you bought it through Shopify, you can transfer it to another domain provider. If it came from somewhere else, remove it from Shopify and point it at your new site. Domain renewals are not cancelled when you cancel your store.
4. Check apps billed outside Shopify. Shopify uninstalls every app when you cancel and charges any outstanding app usage at that point. Apps that bill you directly have to be cancelled with the app company.
5. Expect a final charge if anything is owed. Any pending charges on your account are billed when you cancel. If nothing is owed, no final invoice is issued.

How to cancel your Shopify subscription

You have to be the store owner to do this. On desktop:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Plan.
2. Click Cancel plan. If you’re still in the free trial, the button says Cancel trial.
3. Shopify shows your alternatives: a cheaper plan, the Pause and Build plan, or starting a new store. To close the store, select Cancel my plan and uninstall all apps and click Continue.
4. Pick a reason and click Continue.
5. Enter your password and click Cancel plan.

On Shopify Plus, contact Shopify Plus Support instead. If you chose a paid plan before your free trial ended, the trial won’t simply run out: you have to pause or deactivate the store yourself to stop billing.

When the store actually closes

Your store closes at the end of the billing cycle you’ve already paid for, not the moment you click. Shopify’s own example: cancel today with a billing cycle that ends on November 25, and the store is deactivated on November 25 (Shopify Help Center).

What happens to your data

Shopify keeps your store’s information for 2 years in case you decide to reopen it. You can ask Shopify to delete your customers’ personal information sooner, but once it’s deleted the store can’t be reactivated. That’s another reason to export everything first.

Pause instead of cancel: the Pause and Build plan

If you’re stopping for a season rather than for good, the Pause and Build plan costs $9 a month (Shopify Help Center). While paused:

• Checkout is turned off on every sales channel, including point of sale, so customers can’t buy anything.
• You can still use your admin and basic reports, and edit products and themes.
• Your storefront stays visible. Turn on password protection if you don’t want visitors trying to order.
• Apps stay installed and keep billing. Uninstall the ones you won’t need while you’re paused.

To use it you need to be the store owner, past the free trial, and on a paid plan, and it isn’t available on Shopify Plus. To start selling again, choose a plan in your plan settings. Your old plan doesn’t come back automatically.

Or switch to a cheaper plan

If the bill is the problem rather than the store, dropping to Basic is the other option on the cancel screen. Check the numbers first: Shopify pricing in 2026 shows the sales level where each plan makes sense, and the Shopify fee calculator works it out for your store.