Is DSers free, and what does the paid plan add?
Short answer
Yes. The DSers free plan covers up to 3,000 products, one store and unlimited order processing, which is enough to run a store to $10k a month. The paid tiers ($19.90 and $49.90 a month) add multiple stores, bulk mapping and automation you do not need until you are running several stores or several hundred orders a day.
| Plan | Price | Products | Stores | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic (free) | $0 | Up to 3,000 | 1 | Everyone starting out. Genuinely sufficient. |
| Advanced | ~$19.90 | Up to 20,000 | 5 | Multiple stores or a large catalogue. |
| Pro | ~$49.90 | Up to 75,000 | 10 | Agencies and multi-brand operators. |
DSers plan comparison, checked August 2026. Prices are monthly billing.
What the free plan actually includes
The DSers free tier is not a trial. It covers:
- Up to 3,000 products imported
- One store connected
- Unlimited order processing — no per-order fee, no monthly order cap
- Bulk order placement to AliExpress
- Automatic tracking number sync back to Shopify
- Variant mapping and the supplier optimiser
A dropshipping store typically sells one to five products seriously. The 3,000-product limit is not a constraint you will meet, and stores doing $10,000 a month run on this plan every day.
What you pay for on the higher tiers
The Advanced and Pro plans mostly sell scale, not capability: more products, more connected stores, bulk mapping across many SKUs, and automation rules for people processing hundreds of orders a day across several brands.
If you are running one store, there is no feature on the paid plans that will make you more money. Spend the $19.90 on ad budget instead.
Where the real costs sit
DSers being free does not make dropshipping free. Your actual per-order costs are:
- Product cost paid to the AliExpress supplier
- Shipping cost, which is separate and is the line people forget when they calculate margin
- Payment processing, 2.9% + 30¢ on Shopify Payments in the US
- Your platform fee, $39/mo on Shopify Basic
The mistake that costs people money is treating the AliExpress item price as the product cost. On a $8.40 item with $4.60 shipping, your landed cost is $13.00, and that is the number to put into the break-even calculator.
The one limitation that matters
DSers ships through AliExpress, so you inherit AliExpress delivery windows: 8-20 days to the US and 7-15 days to Western Europe. There is no custom packaging and no branding, and some suppliers still include their own invoice in the parcel.
That is a fair trade while you are finding out whether a product sells. Once one product passes five to ten orders a day, the supplier comparison covers the upgrade path — CJdropshipping warehouses cut delivery to 2-5 days on stocked SKUs, and a private agent takes 10-25% off your unit cost at higher volume.
The short version
Start on the free plan, and connect it to Shopify in about ten minutes. Stay on it longer than you think you should. The subscription only makes sense once you are managing several stores, and by then it is a rounding error against your ad spend.
Related questions
Does DSers charge per order?
Is DSers better than the old Oberlo?
This is one question out of a much longer guide. The full breakdown lives onthe supplier comparison, and you can run your own numbers in thebreak-even calculator.