Does Shopify Take a Percentage of Every Sale?

Where these numbers come from

Every figure here was read on 18 October 2026 from three places: Shopify's Australian pricing page (shopify.com/au/pricing), the Shopify Help Center articles on third-party transaction fees and on the cost of Shopify Payments, and Stripe's Australian pricing page. No forums or third-party estimates. Shopify reprices from time to time, so the pricing page on the day you sign up is always the final word.

What Shopify charges per sale, plan by plan

When the extra fee applies

Shopify's Help Center sets out the rules. The fee applies:

• When a customer pays through a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments. Shopify charges its percentage on top of whatever that provider charges you.
• On the full order value, not just the products: Shopify's formula is (products minus discounts) plus tax plus shipping, multiplied by your plan's rate.
• On gift cards and store credit, for stores created on or after 12 May 2025.
• Even when the order is refunded. Shopify says third-party transaction fees aren't returned to you when you issue a refund.

When it doesn't

• Orders paid through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay or Shop Pay Installments.
• Manual payments: cash, cash on delivery and bank transfers.
• In-person sales through Shopify POS.
• PayPal orders, as long as Shopify Payments is your primary provider.

The catch if you mix providers

Plenty of stores keep their existing payment provider for cards and turn on Shopify Payments as well, so customers can use Shop Pay. Shopify's Help Center says that in that setup, transactions through Shopify Payments are charged at the standard rate plus a 1.25% premium, and the third-party fee still applies to everything going through your other provider. Pick one or the other, or both rates go up.

Custom code + Stripe vs Shopify, side by side

Blue is card processing, which every online store pays, ours included. Amber is Shopify's monthly plan. Red is Shopify's 2% fee for using your own payment provider. Hover a bar for the exact amount:

One A$100 sale: custom code + Stripe vs Shopify

A month of sales: A$10,000 from 100 orders

What the tables show

Per sale, Stripe on a custom store and Shopify Payments cost about the same: a few cents apart on an A$100 order. The gap comes from the fees around the card rate. Keep your own payment provider on Shopify Basic and you pay twice on every order, A$2,400 a year on A$10,000 a month in sales. Stay on Shopify Payments and you avoid that, but the plan bills every month and the only way to lower the card rate is a bigger plan. On a custom store, Stripe's rate is the only per-sale cost, and it doesn't change with the size of your plan because there isn't one.

What a store you own pays instead

Card processing is a cost on every store, ours included: the bank networks and the payment provider take their cut whatever platform you sell on. On a custom-coded store, your Stripe account is in your name, Stripe charges its published rate, and that is the whole per-sale cost. We don't add a percentage on top, ever, and there's no platform fee that rises as you sell more. You can also switch payment providers later without a penalty fee, because the checkout is code you own rather than a plan you rent.

When Shopify is still the right call

If you want to launch this week, run the store yourself, and you're happy using Shopify Payments, Basic is a fair deal: no extra transaction fee, a card rate close to Stripe's, and a big app store behind it. The trade-off is that your store, theme and checkout live on Shopify, the monthly plan keeps billing, and the apps most shops end up adding (reviews, subscriptions, bookings) usually bill monthly too. A custom build makes sense when the store matters to your revenue and you'd rather pay once for something you own than rent it every month.

Sources

1. Shopify pricing (Australia)https://www.shopify.com/au/pricing

   Plan prices, Shopify Payments card rates and the third-party transaction fee for each plan.

2. Shopify Help Center: Third-party transaction feeshttps://help.shopify.com/en/manual/your-account/manage-billing/billing-charges/types-of-charges/third-party-charges/third-party-transaction-fees

   When the fee applies, how it is calculated, exemptions, and that it is not returned on refunds.

3. Shopify Help Center: Cost of Shopify Paymentshttps://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/onboarding/cost-of-shopify-payments

   No transaction fee with Shopify Payments alone, and the 1.25% premium when it runs beside another provider.

4. Stripe pricing (Australia)https://stripe.com/au/pricing

   1.65% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, with no setup or monthly fees.

Where to next

• What a custom-coded online store includes →

  Product pages, cart and checkout, built as code you own.

• Every Shopify, Squarespace and Wix plan in A$ →

  The monthly side of the bill, read from their pricing pages.

Keep every dollar of every sale