Shopify Third Party Payment Gateway Fee: Costs by Plan

The Shopify third party payment gateway fee is an extra transaction charge Shopify adds when you take payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments. Per Shopify's pricing page, it runs from 2% on Basic down to 0.5% on Advanced, and it's on top of whatever your gateway charges.

Plenty of merchants only spot it when the first monthly bill arrives. This guide covers what the fee is, how much it costs by plan with full totals, which countries decide whether you can avoid it, and the practical ways to cut it. Check Shopify's pricing page for current numbers, since rates can change.

What is the Shopify third party payment gateway fee?

It's a percentage Shopify charges on every order paid through an external gateway. Shopify also calls it the external gateway fee or an additional transaction fee. It exists because Shopify earns its payment margin through Shopify Payments, and charges you when you route card sales elsewhere.

Here's the part that trips people up: you pay two fees on each sale. One goes to the gateway (Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net and so on). The other goes to Shopify for the privilege of using that gateway on its checkout.

Which gateways trigger it?

• Authorize.net, Braintree, Worldpay and similar providers are third-party gateways, and orders paid through them carry Shopify's additional fee.
• Stripe is also third-party wherever it is connected as an external provider. In countries with Shopify Payments, Shopify's own gateway is built on Stripe, so you use that instead.
• PayPal is a separate case. Shopify has historically not charged its additional fee on PayPal Express Checkout, but PayPal charges its own rates, so verify the current treatment in your admin.
• Manual payment methods such as bank transfer or cash on delivery have also been listed with the fee in some accounts. Shopify's admin shows what applies to you.

Always confirm in your admin under Settings → Payments, where Shopify lists the fee attached to each provider. Our Shopify Payments vs PayPal comparison covers the PayPal side in detail.

Shopify third party payment gateway fee by plan

The surcharge depends on your plan, and higher tiers pay less. According to Shopify's pricing page, the additional fee on third-party gateways is 2% on Basic, 1% on Shopify (the mid tier) and 0.5% on Advanced. Plus plans are negotiated individually.

Plan	Third-party gateway fee	Fee on $10,000 in sales
Basic	2.0%	$200
Shopify	1.0%	$100
Advanced	0.5%	$50

Those figures are only Shopify's cut. Add your gateway's own processing rate. Stripe's published US standard rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful card charge, and many other gateways price similarly. On a Basic plan, the real cost per order can pass 5%.

A worked example with full totals

Say you sell $20,000 a month across 400 orders (a $50 average) on the Basic plan through a gateway charging 2.9% + $0.30.

• Shopify external fee (2%): $400
• Gateway percentage (2.9%): $580
• Gateway fixed fees (400 × $0.30): $120
• Total: $1,100, or 5.5% of revenue

Now compare the options. On Shopify Payments, with the same card rate and no external fee, you'd pay roughly $700, saving about $400 a month, or $4,800 a year. On the Advanced plan with the same third-party gateway, Shopify's fee falls to $100, saving $300 a month. But Advanced costs far more than Basic per month. Shopify's pricing page lists current plan prices; if the gap is under $300, upgrading wins at this volume. Below roughly $15,000 a month in sales the savings shrink fast. Our guide on whether Shopify Advanced is worth it covers the full break-even math.

A merchant scenario: the fee in the wild

Consider a hypothetical store based in a country without Shopify Payments, selling handmade homeware at $8,000 a month on Basic via a local gateway. The gateway charges 2.5%, or $200. Shopify adds 2%, or $160. That's $360 a month, 4.5% of revenue, and the Shopify slice alone is $1,920 a year, money that buys no extra service. This is the typical shape of the problem: small fees that look harmless per order and add up annually.

A useful rule of thumb: Shopify's fee is a flat percentage, so it hurts most on low-margin, high-ticket products. On a $400 order with a 20% margin, the 2% Basic fee ($8) eats 10% of your profit before the gateway takes anything. Run that check on your own best sellers.

For a full picture of plan pricing and card rates together, see Shopify payment gateway charges by plan.

How to avoid the Shopify third party payment gateway fee

The cleanest way to avoid the Shopify transaction fee is to use Shopify Payments. Shopify waives its additional fee when you process cards through its own gateway, so you only pay standard card rates. The catch is that Shopify Payments isn't available everywhere.

Shopify third party gateway countries

Shopify Payments is limited to a set of supported countries, which Shopify lists in its help documentation. These include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, much of the EU, Japan, Singapore and others. If your business is registered outside that list, you generally have to use a third-party gateway and accept the fee.

Two things matter here:

• Where your business is registered, not where your customers live, decides eligibility.
• Some product categories are restricted by Shopify Payments' terms, which pushes certain merchants to other processors.

Shopify Stripe fee without Shopify Payments

The rule is simple. If your country supports Shopify Payments, you use Shopify Payments, which runs on Stripe, and there's no extra Shopify fee. You can't swap in your own separate Stripe account to get the same result. If your country isn't supported but Stripe operates there, you can often activate Stripe as a third-party provider. You'll then pay Stripe's rate plus Shopify's external fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Shopify, 0.5% on Advanced. On a Basic plan with Stripe's 2.9% + 30 cents, a $50 order costs $1.75 in Stripe fees plus $1.00 to Shopify, or $2.75 total (5.5%). Stripe's own rates are published on Stripe's pricing page.

Shopify Authorize.net fees

Authorize.net bills its own monthly gateway fee and per-transaction fee, as shown on Authorize.net's site. Its published plans have historically combined a monthly fee (around $25) with a per-transaction fee (around 10 cents) plus a batch fee, in addition to the card processing rate from your merchant account. Treat these as approximate and confirm current figures with Authorize.net. Run it through Shopify and Shopify's external fee comes on top.

Here's an illustrative Basic-plan month: 400 orders at $50 average ($20,000). Shopify's 2% is $400. Using those approximate figures, Authorize.net's monthly fee is about $25 and per-transaction fees about $40 (400 × $0.10), before card processing. That's roughly $465 in gateway-layer and Shopify fees alone, and card processing comes on top. Merchants who need Authorize.net for a merchant account relationship should price all three layers before committing.

How to remove Shopify third party payment gateway fees step by step

You can't switch the fee off, but you can remove it by changing how you get paid. Follow this order and stop at the first step that works for your business.

1. Check eligibility. Confirm your country and business type are supported for Shopify Payments in Shopify's help center.
2. Activate Shopify Payments. In Settings → Payments, complete the identity and bank verification. Once it's active, the external fee no longer applies to orders processed through it.
3. Remove the old gateway. If you keep Authorize.net or another provider active, orders paid there still carry the fee. Deactivate it unless customers need it.
4. Review manual methods. Check whether bank transfer or cash on delivery orders are being charged and decide if they're worth keeping.
5. Compare plans. If you must stay on a third-party gateway, calculate monthly sales times the fee to see if a higher plan saves money.
6. Audit the next bill. Look at the transaction fee line in Shopify's billing and reports to confirm it dropped.

If you're still stuck, choosing the best payment gateway for a small store can help you weigh alternatives before you commit.

Ways around the third party payment gateway fee without Shopify Payments

Yes, there are options, but each carries a trade-off. If Shopify Payments isn't offered in your country, your realistic options are to accept the fee, move to a higher plan, use PayPal's wallet button where it fits, or move to a platform that doesn't tax your choice of processor.

• Accept and price it in. Build the 0.5-2% into your margins and, if needed, your prices.
• Upgrade plan at volume. It only pays off once the fee savings exceed the higher subscription.
• Nudge customers to PayPal. This may avoid Shopify's external fee on that wallet, but PayPal's rates are often higher than card rates.
• Change platforms. If the fee is eating margin month after month, the platform itself may be the problem. Our Shopify hidden costs breakdown shows how transaction fees stack with apps and plan upgrades.

A quick sanity check: add Shopify's plan price, your app bill, your gateway rate and the external fee, then divide by monthly revenue. If that percentage makes you wince, you're not imagining it.

Common questions about the third party payment gateway fee

Does the fee apply to refunds?

Policies vary by provider and over time. Gateways commonly keep their fixed fee on refunds, and Shopify's help center explains how it treats transaction fees on refunded orders. Check both before you promise free returns.

Is the fee charged on taxes and shipping?

The fee is calculated on the order total processed through the gateway, which typically includes shipping and tax. That makes it slightly larger than a percentage of product revenue alone.

Can I negotiate it?

Only on Shopify Plus, where rates are set in a custom contract. Stores on standard plans pay the published percentage.

Does a lower fee mean a better deal overall?

Not necessarily. A gateway with a 0% Shopify surcharge but poor card rates can cost more than a gateway with a small fee and strong rates. Compare the total percentage per order, not one line.

Skip platform-level payment fees altogether

Third-party gateway fees are one of several costs that grow with your sales on Shopify. They sit alongside plan upgrades and monthly app subscriptions for features like abandoned cart recovery and wishlists. Our Shopify app costs guide shows how those add up.

Rovela takes a different approach. It's a flat subscription with no commission on sales, Stripe checkout built in, and 100+ features like abandoned cart, loyalty and reviews included by default. The store runs on standard Next.js code you can download and own. You can see the plans on the Rovela pricing page, or if you're already on Shopify, read how to migrate from Shopify without losing your catalog or customers.

Whatever you choose, do the math on the full percentage you pay per order. The fee you don't see on the pricing page is the one that shapes your margin.