If you are running a Shopify store, processing fees are probably one of your bigger recurring costs, and understanding exactly what you are paying is the first step toward managing them. Here is a straightforward breakdown of what Shopify takes per sale and where those costs come from.
How Shopify’s Fee Structure Works
Shopify charges two types of fees on every transaction: a payment processing fee if you use Shopify Payments, or a processing fee plus an additional transaction fee if you use a third-party payment gateway instead.
The rates below reflect current Shopify pricing as of 2026 and may be updated by Shopify at any time. Always confirm current rates at shopify.com before making plan decisions.
If You Use Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments is Shopify’s built-in gateway. Using it avoids the additional transaction fee, but you are still paying a processing rate that varies by plan:
- Basic: 2.9% + 30¢ per online transaction
- Grow: 2.7% + 30¢ per online transaction
- Advanced: 2.5% + 30¢ per online transaction
- Plus: 2.15% + 30¢ per online transaction
In-person rates are slightly lower across all plans.
If You Use a Third-Party Gateway
This is where costs climb quickly. If you process payments through a gateway other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a transaction fee on top of whatever your processor already charges:
- Basic: 2% per transaction
- Grow: 1% per transaction
- Advanced: 0.6% per transaction
- Plus: 0.2% per transaction
That means a Basic plan merchant using a third-party gateway could be paying their processor’s rate plus an additional 2% on every single order. For high-volume merchants, that adds up fast.
Using a Third-Party WITHOUT Additional Costs
Through an Evolve Payment integration, you can connect directly with Shopify without triggering the additional transaction fee. That removes the penalty that historically made switching impractical. In one recent example, a merchant processing around $170,000 per month reduced their effective rate from 3.1% to 2.6%, saving over $10,000 per year.
What Is Shopify Payments?
Shopify Payments is Shopify’s native payment processing solution. It is the default option when you set up a store and the only way to avoid the additional transaction fee. It supports most standard business types and handles card processing, Shop Pay, and some buy-now-pay-later options.
The tradeoff is that you are locked into Shopify’s rate card with no room to negotiate, and Shopify Payments is not available to all business types. Merchants in certain high-risk or regulated categories may find themselves ineligible, which puts them in the position of using a third-party gateway and absorbing that additional transaction fee on every order.
Does Shopify Take a Cut on Every Sale?
Yes, in some form. Whether through processing fees on Shopify Payments or transaction fees on third-party gateways, Shopify collects on every order you process. The only way to avoid the transaction fee specifically is to use Shopify Payments as your payment processor.
Where Those Fees Add Up
For a merchant processing $20,000 per month on a Basic plan with Shopify Payments, the processing fees alone run roughly $580 before any fixed subscription cost. On a third-party gateway at Basic, that same merchant could be paying an additional $400 on top of their processor’s fees, simply for not using Shopify’s native solution.
Moving to a higher plan reduces the transaction fee, but the subscription cost increases accordingly. Whether the math works in your favor depends on your monthly volume and what you are actually paying per transaction.
Reducing What You Pay Per Sale
If you are on Shopify Payments and looking to reduce costs, the options at the platform level are limited to upgrading your plan to access lower rates. If you are using a third-party gateway and absorbing transaction fees on top of processing costs, the calculus looks different. Merchants who have switched to a dedicated payment processor integrated with Shopify have been able to reduce their effective rate meaningfully.
Evolve Payment works with Shopify merchants to evaluate their current processing costs and identify whether a third-party setup actually makes sense financially. In some cases, the math favors staying with Shopify Payments. In others, the savings are significant enough to offset the transaction fee entirely.