Shopify Third-Party Transaction Fees: What They Are and When They Hit You
What this fee is
If you process payments through a gateway other than Shopify Payments (Stripe direct, PayPal, Authorize.net, etc.), Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on those orders — on top of whatever your gateway charges you. It's the cost of using Shopify's checkout with someone else's processor.
The one verified number
Shopify's official US pricing page and Help Center confirm the third-party transaction fee for every plan (checked October 20, 2026): Basic 2%, Grow 1%, Advanced 0.6%, Plus 0.2%. If your plan or contract carries a different rate, check it directly in Settings → Plan and Settings → Payments before doing any math.
Two facts worth knowing, both from Shopify's Help Center: these fees vary by plan, and they apply only when a sale runs through a third-party payment provider — orders processed through Shopify Payments itself don't carry this fee.
When it applies (and when it doesn't)
- Applies: any order processed through a third-party or external payment provider on your checkout.
- Doesn't apply: orders processed through Shopify Payments. Manual payment methods (cash on delivery, bank transfer) are handled separately — check your plan terms.
- Partial months count. If you ran an external gateway for two weeks mid-month, those two weeks of orders carry the fee. Blended monthly reports hide this; per-order breakdowns don't.
Decision framework: stay external or switch to Shopify Payments?
Run this comparison with your own numbers — never with blog-post rates:
- Pull 30 days of data. From your payouts, total the orders processed externally vs. through Shopify Payments.
- Compute your true external cost. External orders × your gateway's rate + external orders × your plan's third-party transaction fee (from your dashboard, not from us).
- Compute the Shopify Payments alternative. Same external orders × your plan's Shopify Payments rate (from Settings → Payments).
- Factor in the non-fee reasons. Payout speed differences, gateway-specific features (fraud tools, regional coverage), and migration effort. Fees alone rarely decide this.
If the difference is small, the switching cost usually wins. If it's large, quantify it in dollars per month — that's the number that justifies a migration project.
Common mistakes
- Comparing gateway rate to Shopify Payments rate and stopping there. The third-party transaction fee is the hidden second term.
- Using someone else's plan rate. The fee varies by plan. Basic's verified 2% is not your rate unless you're on Basic.
- Forgetting refunds. Fee behavior on refunded orders differs — reconcile against an actual payout, not a rate card.
Where to verify everything in this article
- Your plan's third-party transaction fee: Settings → Plan, then Settings → Payments
- That fees vary by plan: Shopify Help Center, "Pricing plans and billing"
- All four plan rates: Shopify's official pricing page (verified October 20, 2026)
All fee figures on this page were checked against Shopify's official sources on October 20, 2026. Rates change over time; your Shopify dashboard is the source of truth. Not financial advice.