How much does Shopify take per sale?
Shopify takes no commission on your sales. What it charges is card processing — 2.9% + $0.30 per online order on the Basic plan with Shopify Payments — plus a flat monthly subscription. On a $60 order that processing fee is $2.04. Spread the $39 Basic plan across 100 orders a month and each order carries another $0.39, so Shopify's real take is $2.43 per $60 sale, or 4.05% of revenue. Sell only 10 orders in that month and the identical $60 sale costs $5.94, or 9.90%, because the subscription has ten orders to sit on instead of a hundred. Shopify's per-sale cost is not a rate. It is a rate plus a monthly bill divided by how many orders you ship.
That distinction is why two sellers on the same plan quote wildly different "Shopify fees" and both are telling the truth. Below are the computed numbers at five volume levels and on all three plans, the point where each plan becomes the cheapest, what a third-party gateway adds, what apps do to the total, and the cases where a marketplace charging 15% still leaves you better off. All figures are 2026 US rates with Shopify Payments unless stated, and they match what the Shopify Fee Calculator computes. Confirm rates against Shopify's current published pricing before you commit to a plan.
What Shopify takes per order at 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 orders a month
This is the table that answers the question properly. Every cell is the card processing fee on a $60 order plus that month's subscription divided by the order count.
| Orders / month | Monthly revenue | Basic ($39) | Shopify ($105) | Advanced ($399) | Cheapest plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $600 | $5.94 | $12.42 | $41.70 | Basic |
| 50 | $3,000 | $2.82 | $4.02 | $9.78 | Basic |
| 100 | $6,000 | $2.43 | $2.97 | $5.79 | Basic |
| 500 | $30,000 | $2.12 | $2.13 | $2.60 | Basic (by 1¢) |
| 1,000 | $60,000 | $2.08 | $2.03 | $2.20 | Shopify |
The same figures as a percentage of the $60 order:
| Orders / month | Basic | Shopify | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 9.90% | 20.70% | 69.50% |
| 50 | 4.70% | 6.70% | 16.30% |
| 100 | 4.05% | 4.95% | 9.65% |
| 500 | 3.53% | 3.55% | 4.33% |
| 1,000 | 3.47% | 3.38% | 3.67% |
Three things fall out of those grids.
At low volume the plan is the fee. Ten orders a month on Advanced means Shopify takes 69.5% of every order before you have paid for the product. Only $1.80 of that $41.70 is processing. The rest is a $399 subscription with ten orders to spread across.
Basic stays cheapest far longer than most people expect. It wins at 10, 50, 100 and 500 orders a month. The crossover to the Shopify plan lands at 550 orders a month at a $60 average order value — $33,000 in monthly card revenue.
At high volume the plans converge. At 1,000 orders the three plans sit within 17 cents of each other. Every difference that looked decisive at the top of the table has become a rounding error, and the plan choice should be made on features — staff accounts, shipping rates, checkout customisation, reporting — not on fee arithmetic.
Shopify plan prices and payment rates for 2026
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Online card rate | Fee if you skip Shopify Payments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39/mo | $29/mo | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.0% |
| Shopify | $105/mo | $79/mo | 2.7% + $0.30 | 1.0% |
| Advanced | $399/mo | $299/mo | 2.5% + $0.30 | 0.5% |
Look at the asymmetry. From Basic to Advanced the card rate improves by 0.4 percentage points while the subscription rises more than tenfold. A plan upgrade is a bet that your volume is large enough for four-tenths of a percent to outrun several hundred dollars a month, and that bet needs a lot more revenue than the pricing page implies.
Card-present sales through Shopify POS are cheaper than online sales — the US rate runs roughly 2.6% + $0.10 on Basic, so a $60 in-person sale costs about $1.66 against $2.04 online, a saving of $0.38 per transaction. The calculator models online rates, so subtract by hand if most of your volume is at a counter or a market stall.
When upgrading your Shopify plan actually pays for itself
The break-even has a clean closed form. The price gap between two plans divided by the rate saving gives you the monthly card revenue at which the upgrade turns positive — and it does not depend on your average order value at all.
Break-even monthly revenue = monthly price gap ÷ rate saving
| Upgrade | Price gap | Rate saving | Break-even revenue | Orders at $60 AOV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic → Shopify (monthly billing) | $66 | 0.2% | $33,000 | 550 |
| Shopify → Advanced (monthly billing) | $294 | 0.2% | $147,000 | 2,450 |
| Basic → Shopify (annual billing) | $50 | 0.2% | $25,000 | 417 |
| Shopify → Advanced (annual billing) | $220 | 0.2% | $110,000 | 1,834 |
| Basic → Shopify (third-party gateway) | $66 | 1.0% | $6,600 | 110 |
| Shopify → Advanced (third-party gateway) | $294 | 0.5% | $58,800 | 980 |
Two rows deserve attention. Annual billing cuts both price gaps and pulls the break-evens down by about a quarter. And if you are on a third-party gateway, the upgrade saves you a full percentage point of revenue in transaction fees rather than two-tenths in processing, so Basic to Shopify pays off at just $6,600 a month — five times sooner than the standard advice suggests.
The practical rule: a store doing under $25,000 a month on Shopify Payments belongs on Basic, and moving up before then is buying features, not saving fees. Advanced at $20,000 a month costs $294 more and saves $40 in processing — a $254 monthly loss dressed up as a lower rate.
What Shopify takes on a $60 sale, line by line
A concrete order: $60 selling price, $22 product cost, $6 shipping, all three plans, Shopify Payments.
| Plan | Processing fee | Transaction fee | Total fees | Net profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $2.04 | $0.00 | $2.04 | $29.96 | 49.93% |
| Shopify | $1.92 | $0.00 | $1.92 | $30.08 | 50.13% |
| Advanced | $1.80 | $0.00 | $1.80 | $30.20 | 50.33% |
| Basic, third-party gateway | $2.04 | $1.20 | $3.24 | $28.76 | 47.93% |
The entire spread between Basic and Advanced on this order is 24 cents, or four-tenths of a margin point. The spread between Shopify Payments and an outside gateway on the same Basic plan is $1.20, five times larger.
One detail that quietly costs sellers real money: processing applies to the full amount charged to the card, including buyer-paid shipping and any sales tax you collect. A $60 item with $9 shipping and $5 tax is a $74 charge, so the fee is 2.9% × $74 + $0.30 = $2.45, not $2.04. Enter the order total in the Shopify Fee Calculator, not the item price, and work out the tax portion with the Sales Tax Calculator if you need it separated.
The extra 0.5–2% you pay for not using Shopify Payments
Take payment through an outside gateway and you pay that gateway's processing fee and Shopify's transaction fee on top. Two companies, one payment. Here is the $60 order with a gateway charging a typical 2.9% + $0.30:
| Plan | Shopify Payments | Third-party gateway | Extra per order | Extra per year at 100 orders/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $2.04 | $3.24 | +$1.20 | +$1,440 |
| Shopify | $1.92 | $2.64 | +$0.72 | +$864 |
| Advanced | $1.80 | $2.34 | +$0.54 | +$648 |
A Basic store doing 100 orders a month gives up $1,440 a year — three times the plan fee — for the privilege of using a different processor. The only scenario where that survives scrutiny is a genuinely cheap merchant account, and even then the stacking usually kills it: a 2.4% + $0.30 gateway on a $60 order is $1.74, plus Basic's 2.0% transaction fee of $1.20, for $2.94 against $2.04 on Shopify Payments. Your gateway would need to be close to free.
Note that the calculator assumes a 2.9% third-party rate regardless of plan. If your gateway charges something else, adjust the processing line by hand — the Shopify transaction fee on top is unaffected. For exact gateway numbers, use the Stripe Fee Calculator or the PayPal Fee Calculator.
Why cheap products cost more: order value and the $0.30 fee
The percentage is constant. The $0.30 is not — it is a fixed toll that grows more painful as basket size falls. Basic plan, Shopify Payments, with the right-hand columns adding the $0.39 plan share at 100 orders a month:
| Order total | Processing fee | Fee as % | All-in with plan | All-in % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15 | $0.74 | 4.93% | $1.13 | 7.53% |
| $30 | $1.17 | 3.90% | $1.56 | 5.20% |
| $60 | $2.04 | 3.40% | $2.43 | 4.05% |
| $120 | $3.78 | 3.15% | $4.17 | 3.48% |
| $200 | $6.10 | 3.05% | $6.49 | 3.25% |
| $400 | $11.90 | 2.98% | $12.29 | 3.07% |
A $15 order hands over 7.53% of its value. A $400 order hands over 3.07%. Nothing changed except the basket. This is why free-shipping thresholds, bundles and multi-buy offers are fee strategy as much as merchandising: lifting average order value from $30 to $60 cuts your effective cost from 5.20% to 4.05% without negotiating a single rate. Check what the discount underneath a bundle does to margin with the Discount Margin Calculator.
Apps are the Shopify cost nobody budgets for
Shopify's pricing page shows a plan price. It does not mention that a working store typically runs five to fifteen paid apps — reviews, email and SMS, upsells, subscriptions, returns, loyalty, inventory sync — and that many of them now add a per-order usage fee on top of the monthly.
Basic plan, 100 orders a month at $60, with app spend varied:
| Monthly app spend | Per order | All-in Shopify cost | % of $60 order |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | $0.00 | $2.43 | 4.05% |
| $50 | $0.50 | $2.93 | 4.88% |
| $100 | $1.00 | $3.43 | 5.72% |
| $200 | $2.00 | $4.43 | 7.38% |
| $400 | $4.00 | $6.43 | 10.72% |
A $200 app stack — unremarkable for a store with a subscription product and an email tool — nearly doubles your effective Shopify cost, from 4.05% to 7.38%. The headline said 2.9%.
Apps also dilute with volume exactly the way the plan does. A fixed $150 stack costs $15.00 per order at 10 orders a month, $1.50 at 100, and $0.15 at 1,000. Small stores are hit hardest by every fixed cost in this article, which is the structural reason early Shopify stores feel expensive. Audit the bill quarterly; campaign apps left installed and duplicated functionality are the usual findings, and the hidden costs that eat e-commerce profit covers the rest of the leaks.
Shopify fees by country
Everything above is US pricing. Shopify publishes a separate rate card for each supported market, and both the percentage and the fixed fee change. The shape of the difference matters more than any single figure, because the fixed component is what drives your effective rate on small orders.
A domestic card rate of 2.0% + £0.25 on a £60 order costs £1.45 — an effective 2.42% — against 3.40% for the US 2.9% + $0.30 structure on a $60 order. Same plan, same product, a full percentage point apart purely on geography. Markets in the eurozone, the UK, Australia and New Zealand generally carry lower percentages than the US; cross-border and non-domestic cards carry a surcharge in every market.
The bigger geographic issue is availability. Shopify Payments does not exist in most countries. Sellers across South Asia, most of Africa, much of Latin America and parts of the Middle East have no choice but to run a third-party gateway, which makes the 0.5–2.0% transaction fee an unavoidable cost of location rather than a decision. On Basic at $6,000 a month that is $120 a month, $1,440 a year, paid for nothing but a passport. If that is you, treat the Basic-to-Shopify upgrade as a much earlier decision — the break-even is $6,600 a month, not $33,000 — and price the gap into your products from day one. Moving the resulting payouts across borders has its own spread; compare it with the Wise vs PayPal vs Payoneer Calculator.
Always confirm your own market's numbers on Shopify's published pricing page for that country before you build a margin model on them.
Shopify vs Etsy, eBay and Amazon on the same order
Identical order across every channel: $60 selling price, $22 product cost, $6 shipping, 2026 US rates.
| Platform | Fee structure | Fees | % of order | Net profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify (Basic) | 2.9% + $0.30 | $2.04 | 3.40% | $29.96 | 49.93% |
| TikTok Shop | 6% referral | $3.60 | 6.00% | $28.40 | 47.33% |
| Etsy | 6.5% + 3% + $0.45 | $6.15 | 10.25% | $25.85 | 43.08% |
| eBay | 13.25% + $0.40 | $8.35 | 13.92% | $23.65 | 39.42% |
| Amazon | 15% referral | $9.00 | 15.00% | $23.00 | 38.33% |
| Walmart | 15% referral | $9.00 | 15.00% | $23.00 | 38.33% |
| Poshmark | 20% flat | $12.00 | 20.00% | $20.00 | 33.33% |
Shopify wins on paper by a distance — $6.96 per order more than Amazon, $9.96 more than Poshmark. Add the plan share at 100 orders a month and Shopify's fee becomes $2.43, net profit $29.57, margin 49.28%. Still first, comfortably.
Price your own order across all of them at once with the Marketplace Fee Comparison Calculator, or drill into one channel with the Etsy Fee Calculator, eBay Fee Calculator or Amazon FBA Profit Calculator. The full cross-platform data set lives in online marketplace seller fees statistics.
When a marketplace still wins even though it takes 15%
The table above compares fees, not businesses, and it omits the largest line on a Shopify P&L: getting the customer there. Amazon's 15% buys a buyer who arrived ready to check out. Shopify's 2.9% buys a checkout page and nothing else.
Add customer acquisition cost to the Shopify side of the same $60 order, Basic plan at 100 orders a month, and compare against Amazon's flat $9.00:
| Cost to acquire the customer | Shopify all-in per order | % of order | Result vs Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 (repeat, email, organic) | $2.43 | 4.05% | Shopify wins by $6.57 |
| $5 | $7.43 | 12.38% | Shopify wins by $1.57 |
| $6.57 | $9.00 | 15.00% | Dead heat |
| $10 | $12.43 | 20.72% | Amazon wins by $3.43 |
| $20 | $22.43 | 37.38% | Amazon wins by $13.43 |
| $30 | $32.43 | 54.05% | Amazon wins by $23.43 |
$6.57 is the number to remember. If you cannot buy a customer for less than that, Amazon's 15% is cheaper than your own store on a first order — and paid acquisition on a $60 product rarely comes in under $6.57. Work out the ad spend your margin can carry with the Breakeven ROAS Calculator.
A marketplace usually wins when buyers search for your product by name rather than discover it, when you have no audience and no ad budget, when order value is too low to recover acquisition cost on a first purchase, or when you are still testing whether the product sells at all. Shopify wins on the second order and every one after it: a returning customer costs you 2.9% and nothing else, while Amazon charges 15% every single time. That is the entire strategic argument for owning a store, and it depends on repeat purchase rate rather than on fee tables. Best platform to sell online in 2026 works through the choice channel by channel.
What Shopify costs you over a full year
Per-order figures are easy to wave away. Annualised, on Basic at a $60 average order value, with eBay and Amazon on identical revenue for scale:
| Orders / month | Annual revenue | Shopify Basic | eBay | Amazon | Shopify vs eBay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $7,200 | $712.80 | $1,002.00 | $1,559.88 | saves $289.20 |
| 50 | $36,000 | $1,692.00 | $5,010.00 | $5,879.88 | saves $3,318.00 |
| 100 | $72,000 | $2,916.00 | $10,020.00 | $11,279.88 | saves $7,104.00 |
| 500 | $360,000 | $12,708.00 | $50,100.00 | $54,479.88 | saves $37,392.00 |
| 1,000 | $720,000 | $24,948.00 | $100,200.00 | $108,479.88 | saves $75,252.00 |
Shopify Basic figures are processing plus twelve months of the $39 plan. Amazon includes the $39.99 monthly Pro seller account. Shopify's column excludes apps, ads and your theme — the three costs that turn a $75,252 paper saving into something much smaller in practice. Feed your real fixed costs into the Break-Even Calculator to see how many orders a month actually cover them, and use the Profit Margin Calculator once you know your per-order cost.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Shopify take per sale?
Shopify takes no commission. On Basic with Shopify Payments the charge is 2.9% + $0.30 per online order — $2.04 on a $60 sale. Add the monthly plan spread across your orders: at 100 orders a month that is $0.39 more per order, giving $2.43, or 4.05% of a $60 sale.
Does Shopify take a percentage of my sales?
Only through payment processing. There is no referral or final value fee like eBay's 13.25% or Amazon's 15%. If you use Shopify Payments, the percentage you pay is the card rate — 2.9%, 2.7% or 2.5% by plan — and nothing else. If you use an outside gateway, Shopify adds 0.5% to 2.0% on top.
Which Shopify plan has the lowest fees?
It depends entirely on volume. Basic is cheapest up to about $33,000 a month in card revenue; the Shopify plan takes over above that, and Advanced only makes sense past roughly $147,000 a month. At 10 orders a month a $60 sale costs $5.94 on Basic and $41.70 on Advanced.
How do I avoid Shopify transaction fees?
Use Shopify Payments. The 0.5–2.0% transaction fee applies only to orders taken through a third-party gateway, and switching removes it entirely — worth $1,440 a year to a Basic store doing 100 orders a month at $60. Where Shopify Payments is unavailable in your country, the next-best move is upgrading a plan, since the fee drops from 2.0% to 1.0% at $6,600 a month in revenue.
Is Shopify cheaper than Etsy or eBay?
On fees alone, yes, by a wide margin: $2.04 on a $60 order versus $6.15 on Etsy and $8.35 on eBay. On total cost, not always — Etsy and eBay supply buyers, and once you pay more than $6.57 to acquire a customer, a 15% marketplace beats your own store on a first sale.
Does Shopify charge fees on shipping and sales tax?
Yes. Payment processing applies to the full amount charged to the card, which includes buyer-paid shipping and collected sales tax. A $60 item with $9 shipping and $5 tax is a $74 charge and costs $2.45 to process, not $2.04.
Related calculators
- Shopify Fee Calculator — your exact fee, net profit and margin per order
- Marketplace Fee Comparison Calculator — the same order priced on every channel
- Profit Margin Calculator — turn per-order cost into a true margin
- Breakeven ROAS Calculator — the ad spend your Shopify margin supports
- Break-Even Calculator — orders needed to cover plan, apps and fixed costs
- Landed Cost Calculator — get product cost right before any fee math
- Stripe Fee Calculator — what an outside gateway costs before Shopify's cut
Further reading: the true cost of selling on Shopify and how to reduce seller fees.