If you use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a third-party transaction fee on top of the gateway’s own charges: 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow, 0.6 percent on Advanced and 0.2 percent on Plus. The fee is calculated on the order total including tax and shipping and is not returned when you refund an order. Upgrading a plan cuts the percentage; the table below shows the monthly sales at which each upgrade pays for itself.
Rates and prices below are the figures Shopify’s pricing page showed on 29 Sept 2026 to a visitor in the EU, so they are in euros. Shopify prices differ by country, so open the pricing page for your own; the percentages are what matter for the break-even maths. For reference, a third-party USD guide (Shero Commerce, checked 29 Sept 2026) lists US plan prices of 39 (Basic), 105 (Grow), 399 (Advanced) and from 2,300 (Plus) a month on monthly billing, with the same third-party fee percentages of 2, 1, 0.6 and 0.2. US card rates are not stated here because Shopify’s own US page could not be read.
What Shopify charges
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing (per month) | Shopify Payments online card rate | Third-party gateway fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 28 EUR | 21 EUR | 1.9% + 0.25 EUR | 2% |
| Grow | 78 EUR | 59 EUR | 1.8% + 0.25 EUR | 1% |
| Advanced | 384 EUR | 289 EUR | 1.6% + 0.25 EUR | 0.6% |
| Plus | from 2,100 EUR | not listed | 1.4% + 0.25 EUR | 0.2% |
Source: Shopify pricing, EU view, checked 29 Sept 2026. Amex and international cards are about 1 percentage point higher on the Shopify Payments rate. Your gateway (PayPal cards, Stripe, Mollie and others) charges its own rate on top; look up that rate on its own site.
Rules from Shopify’s help page, checked the same day:
- The fee is (product cost minus discounts, plus tax, plus shipping) times your plan rate.
- It is not charged on orders paid with Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments or PayPal Express Checkout (when Shopify Payments is active), or on manual methods such as cash, COD and bank transfer.
- It is not refunded when you refund an order, and it is separate from the gateway’s own fees.
- Shopify Plus merchants using only Shopify Payments have it waived.
If you run Shopify Payments alongside another processor, Shopify’s Payments fees page says the orders that go through Shopify Payments carry a 1.25 percent premium on the standard rate (source). That is one reason merchants who lose access to Shopify Payments, for example after a payout reserve, price the alternative carefully.
For US dollar cost at three sales volumes across Shopify Payments, Stripe and PayPal, see Shopify Payments vs PayPal vs Stripe.
Worked example: one 100 EUR order
A customer pays 100 EUR including tax and shipping through a third-party gateway on Basic. Shopify’s fee is 2 percent, 2.00 EUR. On Shopify Payments the same order would cost 1.9 percent + 0.25 EUR, 2.15 EUR, and no third-party fee. The gateway’s own fee is extra in the first case. So on Basic, a third-party gateway costs 2.00 EUR plus its own rate, against 2.15 EUR all-in on Shopify Payments (standard EU card). The gateway has to be cheaper than the Payments fee minus 2.00 EUR to break even, which almost never happens at this size.
When does upgrading pay for itself?
If most of your orders go through a third-party gateway, a higher plan lowers the percentage. Monthly sales needed for an upgrade to break even is the extra plan cost divided by the percentage points saved. This table is our arithmetic from the table above, using annual-billing and monthly-billing prices.
| Upgrade | Fee saving | Extra plan cost per month (annual / monthly billing) | Break-even monthly sales (annual / monthly billing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic to Grow | 1.0 point | 38 / 50 EUR | 3,800 / 5,000 EUR |
| Basic to Advanced | 1.4 points | 268 / 356 EUR | about 19,100 / 25,400 EUR |
| Grow to Advanced | 0.4 points | 230 / 306 EUR | 57,500 / 76,500 EUR |
Example: a store selling 6,000 EUR a month through a third-party gateway on Basic (annual billing) pays 120 EUR in third-party fees. On Grow it would pay 60 EUR in fees plus 38 EUR more for the plan, a saving of 22 EUR. If instead it sold 2,000 EUR a month, the upgrade would lose 18 EUR. The fee base includes tax and shipping, so real break-even sales are a little lower than the table shows.
Where this fits in the total cost
Fees are one line. Your monthly app stack is another: see the Shopify app cost calculator. For what a sale has to earn after all costs, use the break-even ROAS explainer.
Common questions
Is PayPal a third-party gateway on Shopify?
PayPal Express Checkout is exempt from the third-party fee when Shopify Payments is active, per Shopify’s help page. Other PayPal card processing routed as a separate provider may not be; check the provider type in Settings, Payments.
Do I pay the third-party fee on refunds?
Yes. Shopify says the fee is not returned when you refund an order.
Method: researched from Shopify’s pricing and help pages, checked 29 Sept 2026 from an EU location; USD figures were not retrievable. Break-even numbers are our arithmetic.
See the fees added to plan and apps for three store sizes in the all-in cost.