Shopify Fees Calculator
See what payment processing and your monthly plan really cost you — per order, per month, and as a share of the revenue you actually keep.
Your numbers
Take your exact rate from your payment provider's settings — it depends on your country, your plan and the card the customer pays with.
Results
The Shopify fee formula
Fee per order = Order value × Rate % ÷ 100 + Fixed fee · Effective rate = (Fees per month + Subscription) ÷ Revenue per month
Every card payment is charged in two parts that behave very differently. The percentage scales with the order — a bigger basket pays proportionally more. The fixed amount does not: it is the same charge on a small order as on a large one. Your monthly subscription then sits on top of both, independent of how many orders you take.
The effective rate is the honest version of the headline percentage. It takes everything you paid in a month — processing on every order plus the flat subscription — and divides it by that month's revenue. That single number is what you can compare across providers, plans and months, because it moves when your order volume or average order value moves, even when your quoted rate never changes.
How to use this calculator
- 1
Enter your average order value and how many orders you take in a typical month. Pull both from your store's reports rather than from memory — an optimistic average order value hides the fee problem instead of showing it.
- 2
Enter your payment processing rate and the fixed amount per transaction, exactly as they appear in your payment provider's settings or on your last statement.
- 3
Add your monthly subscription cost. You get the fee on a single order, what is left of that order, your total monthly fees and the effective rate they represent.
Why the fixed fee hurts small orders most
The percentage half of a transaction fee is neutral to order size — it takes the same slice of a cheap order as of an expensive one. The fixed half is not. It lands on every order regardless of value, so its weight depends entirely on what that order is worth.
The arithmetic falls straight out of the formula: the fixed fee's share of an order is the fixed fee divided by the order value. Double the order value and that share halves. On an order ten times larger it weighs ten times less, while the percentage part stays exactly where it was. Two stores on identical terms can therefore end up with very different effective rates — the one selling cheap single items pays far more in relative terms.
This is the mechanical link between average order value and fee load, and it is why bundles, quantity breaks and post-purchase upsells change more than just revenue. Two items in one order means one fixed fee instead of two. Before you go looking for a better rate, check what raising your average order value would do to the effective rate here — it is usually the faster lever, and it is entirely in your control.
The fees people forget
Processing and subscription are only the visible layer. Selling abroad usually adds a currency conversion cost somewhere in the chain — at your provider, at your bank, or both — and it rarely appears on a line labelled fees. Your app stack is the same story: each subscription looks small on its own, and together they behave exactly like a second monthly plan.
Refunds and chargebacks deserve a deliberate look. When you refund an order the percentage part is commonly returned while the fixed part often is not, and a chargeback can carry its own handling charge on top. Check your provider's terms instead of assuming, because this genuinely differs by provider and country. Either way the conclusion holds: a refunded order is not a neutral event, so your refund rate belongs in your fee thinking.
The clean way to see all of it at once is the effective rate. Your subscription is a fixed cost that gets cheaper per order the more you sell; processing is variable and scales with revenue. Dividing everything you paid in a month by that month's revenue collapses both into one comparable number. Track it monthly and a creeping app stack, a bad month of low-value orders or a shift toward foreign cards shows up immediately, instead of hiding behind a headline percentage that never changes.
Frequently asked questions
What determines the rate I actually pay?
Mostly four things: the country your store is registered in, the plan you are on, the payment provider processing the payment, and the type of card or wallet the customer uses. Cross-border cards, business cards and some wallets are frequently priced differently from a standard domestic card. That is why nobody can quote you a rate that is true for your store — open your payment provider's settings or your latest statement, read your own numbers and put them in the calculator.
Do fees apply to shipping and taxes too?
Payment processing is normally charged on the total amount the customer actually pays, which includes shipping and any tax collected at checkout, not only the product price. That matters if you charge for shipping: the shipping revenue carries its own processing cost. Verify it in your provider's terms, since the treatment of tax in particular can differ by country and setup.
How do I lower my fee load?
Three mechanisms, roughly in order of impact. Raise your average order value with bundles or upsells so the fixed part of the fee is spread over more revenue. Reduce refunds and chargebacks so you stop paying for orders that do not stay. And make sure your plan matches your volume, since plans typically trade a higher monthly fee for a lower per-transaction rate. Recalculate after each change rather than guessing — the effective rate will tell you whether it actually worked.
Is the subscription cost fixed or variable?
It is fixed in absolute terms but variable per order: the same monthly amount split across twice as many orders costs half as much on each one. Processing works the other way round — steady per order, growing with your revenue. For break-even planning, treat the subscription and your apps as monthly overhead you have to cover before any profit exists, and treat processing as a cost that reduces the contribution margin of every single order. The profit margin calculator uses exactly that split.