Shopify Fee Calculator

Selling on Shopify is rarely as simple as "price minus cost equals profit." Between payment processing fees, transaction fees, and your monthly plan, a healthy-looking $49 sale can quietly shed a few dollars before it ever reaches your bank account. This guide breaks down exactly what Shopify charges, how each fee is calculated, and the concrete moves that lower your costs.

What fees does Shopify charge?

Shopify's fees fall into three buckets:

1. Subscription fee — your flat monthly plan cost (Basic, Shopify, or Advanced).
2. Payment processing fee — a percentage of each sale plus a fixed amount, charged on every card transaction.
3. Transaction fee — an extra percentage Shopify charges only if you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments.

The calculator above focuses on the per-order fees (processing + transaction), because those are the costs that scale with every single sale and ultimately decide your margin.

How Shopify fees are calculated

For a standard online card payment, the processing fee is:

Processing fee = (card rate × order total) + $0.30

On the Basic plan with Shopify Payments, the online card rate is 2.9% + $0.30. So a $49 order costs:

0.029 × $49 + $0.30 = $1.42 + $0.30 = $1.72

If your product costs $14 and shipping is $4.50, your real profit is:

$49 − $14 − $4.50 − $1.72 = $28.78 — a 58.7% margin.

That $1.72 is the number most sellers forget to subtract, and it compounds: across 1,000 orders a month that's $1,720 in processing fees alone.

Why your real margin is lower than the sticker price suggests

The fixed $0.30 per transaction is flat regardless of order size, so it punishes cheap orders. On a $10 product it's effectively a 3% surcharge; on a $100 product it's just 0.3%. Combined with the percentage rate, low-priced items can lose a surprising share of their margin to fees — which is why average order value matters so much for fee efficiency.

Shopify plan fees compared

Higher plans cost more per month but charge lower card rates — the break-even depends on your sales volume.

Plan	Online card rate	Third-party transaction fee
Basic	2.9% + 30¢	2.0%
Shopify	2.7% + 30¢	1.0%
Advanced	2.5% + 30¢	0.5%

Rates vary slightly by country and change over time, so always confirm against Shopify's current pricing page — and use the calculator to model your own numbers rather than relying on a rule of thumb.

When does upgrading actually pay off?

Divide the monthly price difference between two plans by the per-order saving from the lower rate. That tells you how many orders per month make the upgrade worthwhile.

For example, going from Basic (2.9%) to Shopify (2.7%) saves 0.2% per order. On a $49 average order that's about $0.10 saved per order. If the plans differ by roughly $66/month, you'd need about 660 orders a month before the upgrade pays for itself on processing savings alone — though higher plans also unlock lower shipping rates and more staff accounts, which can tip the math sooner.

Shopify Payments vs. third-party gateways

Here's the fee that surprises people: if you process payments through an external gateway (PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and others) instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a transaction fee on top of whatever that gateway already charges.

On Basic, that's an extra 2.0% per order. On a $49 sale that's an additional $0.98 stacked on top of the gateway's own ~$1.72 — you effectively pay twice. Unless you have a specific reason to use an outside processor, Shopify Payments is almost always cheaper because it waives that transaction fee entirely.

What about refunds, chargebacks, and currency conversion?

A few extra costs that don't show up in the headline rate:

• Refunds: Shopify returns the processing percentage on refunded orders, but historically the fixed per-transaction portion may not be returned — check current terms.
• Chargebacks: disputed transactions can carry a fee and the lost order value, so strong fraud prevention pays for itself.
• Currency conversion: selling in a currency other than your payout currency adds a conversion fee (often around 1.5–2%).

How to reduce your Shopify fees

• Use Shopify Payments wherever it's available to eliminate the extra transaction fee.
• Right-size your plan using the break-even math above.
• Raise average order value with bundles, free-shipping thresholds, and upsells — it dilutes the fixed $0.30 across more revenue.
• Build fees into your pricing. Add roughly 3% of headroom so processing costs don't quietly eat your margin.
• Pay annually to discount the subscription portion.

The bottom line

On Shopify Payments, budget roughly 2.9% + 30¢ of every order for fees on Basic — a little less on higher plans. Avoid third-party gateways unless they're genuinely worth the extra 0.5–2% transaction fee. Plug your real price, cost, and shipping into the calculator above to see your exact profit per sale, then use the levers here to widen the gap.