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Shopify fees explained: plans, card rates and extras

Shopify Basic is $29/mo billed yearly ($39 monthly) plus 2.9% + 30¢ per online card sale. What you pay at $2,000, $10,000 and $50,000 a month in sales.

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Shopify’s fees come in two layers: a plan price, from $29 a month on Basic billed yearly ($39 if you pay monthly), and a fee on every card sale, 2.9% + 30¢ online on Basic when you use Shopify Payments. If you use another payment provider, Shopify adds its own 2% on Basic. For a store selling $10,000 a month in $50 orders, Basic comes to about $379 a month in plan and card fees. Those are Shopify’s US prices as of November 1, 2026.

How we worked this out: plan prices, card rates and third-party fees are from Shopify’s pricing page; the chargeback fee, fee exemptions, domain and theme prices are from Shopify’s help center, domains page and theme store, all read on November 1, 2026. The sales scenarios are our own arithmetic. We haven’t run a Shopify store ourselves. Shopify isn’t in AskGPU’s price data yet, so every figure here is quoted from Shopify directly.

How much does Shopify cost per month?

Shopify’s pricing page lists four plans. Yearly billing cuts the plan price by about a quarter.

Plan Billed monthly Billed yearly (per month) Yearly total Saving vs monthly
Basic $39 $29 $348 $120 a year
Grow $105 $79 $948 $312 a year
Advanced $399 $299 $3,588 $1,200 a year
Plus — Starts at $2,300 — —

The arithmetic for Basic: $39 × 12 = $468 billed monthly, against $29 × 12 = $348 billed yearly. That’s $120, or about 26%, less. Plus is sold on a contract: Shopify’s FAQ says “If you choose a 1- or 3-year Plus subscription, you can cancel when your term commitment expires.”

The FAQ also says “There are no setup fees on any of our plans.”

If you were charged $39 and wondered why, that’s Basic’s monthly-billing price; the $29 shown on the plan card is the yearly rate per month.

The Starter plan doesn’t appear on Shopify’s pricing page as of November 1, 2026, and its help article couldn’t be read, so this guide doesn’t cover it.

What are Shopify’s transaction fees?

With Shopify Payments, you pay a card processing rate on each sale. It falls as you move up a plan.

Plan Online card rate In-person card rate In-person, manually entered Extra fee with a third-party provider
Basic 2.9% + 30¢ 2.6% + 10¢ 3.5% + 10¢ 2%
Grow 2.7% + 30¢ 2.5% + 10¢ 3.5% + 10¢ 1%
Advanced 2.5% + 30¢ 2.4% + 10¢ 3.5% + 10¢ 0.6%
Plus 2.25% + 30¢ 2.3% + 10¢ 3.4% + 10¢ 0.2%

These are the standard US rates on Shopify’s pricing page. The payments terms say fees “will be assessed at the time a Transaction is processed and will be first deducted from the funds received,” so you see them taken out of each payout rather than billed separately. Shopify can change them “subject to a thirty (30) day notice period.”

When the third-party fee applies

If you take payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify charges the extra percentage in the last column on top of whatever that provider charges you. Shopify’s help center says:

  • Orders paid through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay or Shop Pay Installments don’t pay it.
  • “Transaction fees don’t apply for POS orders or for manual payment methods,” such as cash, cash on delivery and bank transfers.
  • If Shopify Payments is your primary provider, “PayPal transactions are exempt from third-party transaction fees.”
  • The fee does apply to “all transactions processed through third-party and alternate payment gateways,” even when Shopify Payments is turned on.
  • For stores created on or after May 12, 2025, it also applies to orders paid partly with store credit or gift cards.

On Basic, a store taking $10,000 a month through another gateway pays Shopify 2% × $10,000 = $200 a month in addition to that gateway’s own fees.

What Shopify costs at $2,000, $10,000 and $50,000 a month

A worked example. Assumptions: all sales are online card payments through Shopify Payments, the average order is $50, and the plan is billed yearly. No apps, theme or domain yet.

Basic ($29 a month):

  • $2,000 in sales is 40 orders. Card fees: 2.9% × $2,000 = $58, plus 40 × $0.30 = $12. Total with the plan: $29 + $58 + $12 = $99, or 5.0% of sales.
  • $10,000 is 200 orders: $290 + $60 + $29 = $379, or 3.8%.
  • $50,000 is 1,000 orders: $1,450 + $300 + $29 = $1,779, or 3.6%.

All three plans at a glance:

Monthly sales Basic ($29) Grow ($79) Advanced ($299)
$2,000 (40 orders) $99 $145 $361
$10,000 (200 orders) $379 $409 $609
$50,000 (1,000 orders) $1,779 $1,729 $1,849

The 30¢ per order is the same on every plan, so only the percentage changes. Grow’s online rate is 0.2 points lower than Basic’s, and costs $50 a month more on yearly billing. It pays for itself at $50 ÷ 0.002 = $25,000 a month in online card sales. On monthly billing the plan gap is $66, so the break-even is $33,000.

Advanced’s rate is 0.2 points below Grow’s and costs $220 a month more on yearly billing, so it only pays for itself on fees at $220 ÷ 0.002 = $110,000 a month. Below that, the reasons to move up are features, such as Advanced’s 15 staff accounts, not fees.

What the third-party fee adds at each level

If you keep another payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify’s own surcharge on top of that provider’s fees looks like this:

Monthly sales Basic (2%) Grow (1%) Advanced (0.6%)
$2,000 $40 $20 $12
$10,000 $200 $100 $60
$50,000 $1,000 $500 $300

Here the plan choice changes more than the card rate does. On a third-party provider, Grow’s surcharge is $100 a month less than Basic’s at $10,000 in sales, which already covers Grow’s extra $50 a month on yearly billing. With another provider, Grow pays for itself at $50 ÷ (2% − 1%) = $5,000 a month in sales, not $25,000.

In-person sales

In-person rates use a 10¢ fixed fee instead of 30¢. A shop on Basic selling 300 in-person card sales of $20 a month ($6,000) pays 2.6% × $6,000 = $156, plus 300 × $0.10 = $30, so $186 in card fees. The same sales online would cost 2.9% × $6,000 = $174 plus 300 × $0.30 = $90, or $264. Small, frequent sales are where the fixed fee matters most: on a $20 order, 30¢ is 1.5% of the sale by itself. Keyed-in card numbers cost 3.5% + 10¢ on every plan below Plus, so avoid entering cards by hand.

What else do you pay for?

The plan and card fees are only part of the bill. Shopify lists these extras on its own pages:

Item Price, per Shopify Notes
Domain “typically start at $9 USD/year” Shopify’s domains page warns that “Renewal pricing may differ from initial purchase and can change over time.” WHOIS privacy and SSL are included.
Paid theme $170 to $400 on the first page of paid results The theme store lists 24 free themes and 1,333 paid ones. It shows one price per theme but doesn’t say on that page whether it’s a one-time charge.
POS Pro $89 a month per location For retail stores; adds features such as staff roles and permissions.
Staff accounts Not included on Basic Grow includes 5, Advanced 15, Plus unlimited.
Chargeback fee $15 in the US Shopify’s help center says “If you win the chargeback, then the fee is returned to you.”
Apps Set by each app developer Shopify’s pricing page says plans “Integrate with 1000s of apps,” but app prices aren’t Shopify’s.

A first-year example for a small store on Basic, billed yearly, with a paid theme and a domain: $348 for the plan + $170 for the cheapest paid theme on the first page of results + about $9 for the domain = $527 before any card fees or apps. With a free theme, it’s about $357.

Shopify’s pricing page also lists, on every plan, “Shipping discounts” of “Up to 87% off” and a reward to “Earn 1% back on all sales,” capped at “Up to $5,000 USD” on Basic, $7,500 on Grow and $10,000 on Advanced. The page doesn’t explain the reward’s terms in the text we read, so don’t count on it in a budget.

What does the free trial include?

Shopify’s pricing page says: “Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months.” Its FAQ adds that the trial needs “no credit card required.” After that, “most plans” move to their standard price.

If you start on Basic, billed monthly after the offer: 3 × $1 + 9 × $39 = $354 for the first year. The pricing page doesn’t say how the $1 offer combines with yearly billing, or whether it applies to every plan, so check at checkout. Plus has its own button, “Try for $399.”

What to watch for

  • The 2% when you skip Shopify Payments. It’s the biggest avoidable fee for a small store. Use Shopify Payments, or a method on the exempt list, unless you have a reason not to.
  • Monthly billing. It costs $120 a year more on Basic and $1,200 more on Advanced. If you’re sure about Shopify after the trial, yearly billing is the cheaper route.
  • Fees on refunds. Shopify’s payments terms say “You will not receive a refund of any Fees paid to us” in the section on refund claims, and don’t clearly say whether card fees come back when you refund a customer. Assume they may not.
  • Fee changes. Shopify can change processing fees with 30 days’ notice, per its US payments terms.
  • Reserves. The terms allow Shopify to hold “a certain amount (including the full amount) of the funds received for a Transaction” for a period it sets.
  • Domain renewals. The $9 starting price is the first year, and Shopify says renewal pricing may differ.
  • Plus contracts. Plus subscriptions run for one or three years; you can cancel “when your term commitment expires.”
  • Leaving. Shopify’s FAQ says to “simply cancel your account,” but your theme and apps don’t come with you to another platform. That’s the main lock-in.

Which Shopify plan should you choose?

  • New store, under $25,000 a month in online sales: Basic, billed yearly at $29. Card fees, not the plan, are most of your cost.
  • $25,000 to $110,000 a month, or you need staff accounts: Grow. Above $25,000 in online card sales its lower rate covers the extra $50, and it adds 5 staff accounts.
  • Over $110,000 a month, or a team needing 15 accounts: Advanced.
  • A retail shop with a till: any plan, plus POS Pro at $89 per location if you need its staff and inventory features. In-person rates are lower than online ones on every plan.
  • You want to avoid platform fees altogether: WooCommerce on your own hosting charges no platform fee, and BigCommerce charges none with its embedded payment providers. See Shopify alternatives, WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
  • You mostly need a website with a small shop: Squarespace may be simpler; our Squarespace pricing guide has its payment rates by plan. For more options, see the website builders hub and the cheapest website builders with a custom domain.

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