Shopify's fee structure gets described backwards more often than any other platform on this site: sellers hear "Shopify charges an extra fee unless you use your own payment processor," when the actual rule is the opposite. Here's how the plan-based processing rate and the third-party transaction fee actually work.
The processing rate drops as you move up plans
Using Shopify Payments (Shopify's own built-in processor), the online card rate is set by your plan, applied to order total (item price + shipping + tax):
| Plan | Monthly fee | Shopify Payments rate |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| Grow | $105 | 2.7% + $0.30 |
| Advanced | $399 | 2.5% + $0.30 |
On a $60 order, that's $2.04 (Basic), $1.92 (Grow), or $1.80 (Advanced) — a $0.12 difference per plan step at this order size, since each step is a flat 0.2 percentage points cheaper.
When upgrading actually pays for itself
A lower processing rate only helps if you place enough orders to make up the higher monthly fee. Moving from Basic to Grow costs an extra $66/month ($105 − $39) but saves $0.12 per $60 order — so the break-even point is $66 ÷ $0.12 ≈ 550 orders a month at that order size. Below that volume, Basic is cheaper overall even though its per-order rate is higher; above it, Grow's lower rate wins. (Moving Grow → Advanced costs $294/month more and saves the same $0.12 per order at this size, pushing that break-even out to roughly 2,450 orders a month.) The math scales with your actual order size — larger average orders reach the break-even point at a lower order count, since the rate difference is a percentage, not a flat number.
The third-party transaction fee: it adds a second fee, it doesn't avoid one
This is the part that gets described backwards. Using a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments (your own Stripe account, PayPal, Authorize.net) doesn't opt you out of a Shopify fee — it adds Shopify's third-party transaction fee on top of whatever your own gateway already charges you:
| Plan | Third-party transaction fee |
|---|---|
| Basic | 2% |
| Grow | 1% |
| Advanced | 0.6% |
Take that same $60 order on the Basic plan, using an outside gateway that charges a comparable 2.9% + $0.30 (so its fee comes out to the same $2.04 as Shopify Payments would). Shopify still adds its own 2% third-party transaction fee on top: 2% of $60 = $1.20. Total cost: $2.04 (your gateway) + $1.20 (Shopify's surcharge) = $3.24 — 59% more than the $2.04 you'd pay by just using Shopify Payments for the identical sale. The only way to avoid the third-party transaction fee entirely is to use Shopify Payments itself.
What this doesn't cover
Scoped to US merchants on the Basic, Grow, or Advanced monthly plans. Shopify Plus isn't included — its pricing and payment rates are individually negotiated per merchant rather than published as a fixed schedule. Annual-billing discounts, in-person (POS) card rates, currency conversion fees, and app subscription costs also aren't modeled here.