Shopify's card-processing rate is the fee everyone quotes, but at low order volume it is not the biggest charge on your sale. The monthly plan price is. Divide it across the orders you actually ship and it moves from a footnote to the largest line in the fee stack.
What Shopify publishes
Shopify's pricing page lists three plans on monthly billing, each with an online card rate for Shopify Payments:
| Plan | Monthly price | Online card rate (Shopify Payments) |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Grow | $105 | 2.7% + 30¢ |
| Advanced | $399 | 2.5% + 30¢ |
The processing rate is charged per order. The plan price is charged once a month whether you ship zero orders or a thousand. To compare it with the per-order fees on other platforms, you have to spread it across your orders. The Shopify Fee Calculator does this when you enter your monthly order count, and shows the result as its own line, "subscription per order."
Worked example: one $40 item, $5 shipping, Basic plan
The assumptions, so you can swap in your own: a $40 item with $5 of buyer-paid shipping, no sales tax collected, Shopify Payments, and the Basic plan on monthly billing. The order total is $45.
- Processing fee: $45 × 2.9% + $0.30 = $1.605, which the calculator rounds to $1.61.
- Plan price per order: $39 ÷ your monthly orders.
| Orders per month | Plan price per order | Processing fee | Total fees | You keep | Share of the order kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $3.90 | $1.61 | $5.51 | $39.49 | 87.76% |
| 50 | $0.78 | $1.61 | $2.39 | $42.61 | 94.69% |
| 200 | $0.20 | $1.61 | $1.81 | $43.19 | 95.98% |
At 10 orders a month, the plan price ($3.90) is more than twice the processing fee ($1.61). At 200 orders it is $0.20 and the processing fee is nearly all of what Shopify takes. The processing fee is the same $1.61 in every row. Only the volume changed.
Why a cheaper rate on a higher plan can cost you more
The same $45 order on the Grow plan has a processing fee of $45 × 2.7% + $0.30 = $1.515, shown as $1.52. That is $0.09 less than Basic on this order. Spread over 10 orders, Grow's $105 plan price is $10.50 per order:
| Orders per month | Plan | Total fees | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Basic | $5.51 | $39.49 |
| 10 | Grow | $12.02 | $32.98 |
| 50 | Basic | $2.39 | $42.61 |
| 50 | Grow | $3.62 | $41.38 |
| 200 | Basic | $1.81 | $43.19 |
| 200 | Grow | $2.05 | $42.95 |
At each of these volumes, Basic leaves more in your pocket on this order. A lower rate only pays off once the order count is high enough that the $66 monthly difference is covered by the per-order savings. For the break-even arithmetic between plans, see Shopify Fees by Plan.
What this leaves out
- Third-party gateways. These figures assume Shopify Payments. If you use another gateway, Shopify's pricing page lists an additional third-party transaction fee (2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced), covered in the plan guide linked above. The calculator has a switch for it.
- Sales tax. The example collects none. If you collect tax, the calculator takes it as an input and includes it in the order total.
- Plan price is a monthly figure, not a per-order one. Dividing it by order count is an allocation we chose so it can sit beside per-order fees. Shopify bills it monthly. Your actual monthly orders will vary, so put your own count in the tool.
- Not modeled: annual-billing discounts, in-person card rates, currency conversion, app subscriptions, Shopify Plus, and the cost of the item itself.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Fee schedules change; check the figures on Shopify's pricing page before relying on them. This is informational only, not professional advice. Tools compute; they don't advise.
Written by Eric, MarginGlass founder.