

Shopify offers a number of plans to their clients – currently these are all priced in USD.
Most new eCommerce opt for the Basic Shopify plan, but then forget to check in as their businesses grow to work out if moving to a higher plan may save more money.
Lets break down each of the costs …
Monthly Price – this is the fixed fee, in USD. Shopify will collect GST on top of your monthly subscription, if you add your ABN to your Shopify store. This is done as part of the set up and it is likely that you are not paying GST on your Shopify Subscription.
Online Australian Credit Card rates – for all plans you will pay a fixed fee of .30 cents AUD for each order that is paid for by credit card. In addition, you will pay a percentage of the sale, which ranges from 1.4% to 1.75%, depending on the Shopify plan you are subscribed to. This is where you need to do the maths frequently, as if your orders increase, it may be cheaper to be subscribed to a higher monthly subscription rate with Shopify to save on the credit card payment fees. These online rates include GST in Australia if applicable.
Online International & Amex Rates – this fee is charged if a customer pays for your order using a credit card that is not associated with your payout currency. Each order will have three currency types that need to be considered:
- Your Shopify default currency
- The credit card check out currency
- The default payout currency that is nominated in your Shopify file
- All three must match to receive Australian Credit card rates, if one does not match you will pay International Credit card rates.
If you are an Australian business, and have set up your Shopify file using an ABN and an Australian address, the default payout currency will be in AUD. So if your Shopify store is set up with USD currency, and your customer uses a USD credit card to check out, you will still have to pay the higher international fee. Check out this article to find out how to change your payout currency to USD if you are an Australian merchant. These rates include GST.
Additional Fees for using all payment providers other than Shopify Payments – these fees ONLY apply if you have Shopify payments turned off. They apply to alternative payment methods (set up in Settings | Payments) such as Afterpay, Zip and Humm. If you have Shopify payments turned on there are no additional fees charged for these other payment gateways. Shopify is pretty clever about this – they are hoping if you offer the bright, shiny Shopify payments method, listed first, they will capture most of your customer’s orders. Your shopify theme will dictate how the payment methods are presented, and they are motivated to put their own payment method first. These rates include GST.
Here is an example of a check out screen where the customer is asked to choose their preferred payment method:

Don’t forget there is also a Shopify Pro option. The monthly cost for Pro is $2,000USD, so it would only be an option for a very large eCommerce store. Fees are negotiated with Shopify, but we can share with you our clients are paying 1.2% plus .30 cents a transaction. In addition Shopify Pro gives you more hosting power to provide the band width for a large sale, such as Black Friday.
Get in touch with us to discuss your Shopify file and automating the guts out of your eCommerc store with Xero + A2x + Shopify!