How Shopify fees are worked out
A Shopify store pays two kinds of fee. The first is the plan subscription, a fixed monthly price. The second is a payment fee on every order, charged as a percentage of the order total plus a fixed amount. This calculator adds both and shows the cost of a single order, so you can see what each sale really leaves you.
The figures come from Shopify's US pricing page. Paid monthly, Basic is $39, Grow $105 and Advanced $399. Paid yearly, they drop to $29, $89 and $359 a month. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month and is left out.
Shopify Payments rates
With Shopify Payments, the standard online card rate is 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced. Card fees apply to the amount charged to the card, so enter the full order total, including shipping and any sales tax you collect. Premium cards cost more (3.5%, 3.3% and 3.1% plus 30¢), international cards add 1%, and in-person sales have their own lower rates. The calculator uses the standard online rate, so treat it as the usual case rather than the worst case.
Using another payment gateway
If you take payments through PayPal, Stripe or another gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on each order: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. The gateway also charges its own processing fee, which Shopify does not set. Choose "Third-party gateway" and type in your gateway's rate and fixed fee. The defaults of 2.9% and 30¢ are a typical figure, not a quote, so check your gateway's pricing.
Spreading the plan over your orders
The plan costs the same however many orders you take, so its share of each order shrinks as you sell more. At 20 orders a month, Basic adds almost $2 to every order. At 500 orders, it adds less than 8¢. Enter a realistic monthly order count to see the true cost per sale. Apps, themes, domains and shipping labels are not included, so add them to your cost per order if you want profit to reflect them.
Which plan is cheapest
Switch the plan and watch the total. A lower card rate saves only 0.2% of sales per step, so a higher plan pays for itself on fees alone only at high volume. If you use a third-party gateway, the surcharge gap is bigger, which is often the main reason to move to Shopify Payments.