Shopify Payments Review

Pros

• Predictable flat-rate pricing
• No early termination fee
• All-in-one payments
• Good for eCommerce
• Multicurrency acceptance

Cons

• Sudden account terminations are possible
• Funding holds are common
• Customer support quality lacking on lower-tier plans

What Is Shopify Payments?

Shopify Payments is Shopify’s integrated payment processor. It allows new Shopify merchants to start processing payments almost immediately. Using Shopify Payments means you won’t have to integrate an outside payment provider, nor will you have to pay the per-transaction fee Shopify charges when you use an outside processor.

While Shopify Payments has some flaws, it remains a top credit card processing option for Shopify sellers. Read our full Shopify Payments review to get a sense of the benefits as well as the more common complaints.

Products & Services

Merchants who sign up for Shopify to sell online can choose to use Shopify’s in-house credit card processor, Shopify Payments. Shopify Payments is made possible through a partnership with Stripe (which provides the back-end processing) and is available in addition to around 100 alternative third-party gateways (such as PayPal).

All told, Shopify Payments does a great job of meeting the processing needs of Shopify merchants with its products and features, earning it an excellent rating in this category.

Let’s now summarize the products and services on offer from Shopify Payments.

Features Overview

Fees & Rates

Shopify’s processing fees and monthly charges, while not the lowest around, are fully disclosed by Shopify with no attempt at obfuscation. We also appreciate the near-total lack of extra fees. All things considered, Shopify Payments is deserving of high marks in this category.

Pricing Overview

As Shopify is designed to accommodate all business sizes, from casual social media sellers to global enterprises, monthly fees and transaction fees vary significantly, depending on which plan you’re on.

Monthly Plans

Extra Costs

The main advantage to using Shopify Payments in conjunction with Shopify is that you won’t have to pay the additional fee that Shopify will charge if you use a third-party processor.

Except for the chargeback fee, Shopify does not charge any additional monthly fees, payment security fees, hidden fees, or setup fees on its payments service.

One optional add-on Shopify offers is POS Pro, which includes advanced POS features.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Shopify Payments does a great job in terms of sales and advertising transparency. You’ll find all pricing information for rates and fees clearly on the website, and users haven’t reported any bait-and-switch tactics or shady sales gimmicks listed online. For these reasons, we’re giving Shopify Payments high scores in this category.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

You can cancel your Shopify Payments contract at any time and there is no early termination fee (ETF). These are the exact terms we love to see from a processor.

However, if you pay for a longer 1-3 year term and at some point during that term decide to stop using Shopify, you will not receive a refund of the fees you paid in advance. You could potentially lose a lot of money this way, if, say, your business closes soon after you pay for a year’s worth of service.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Shopify keeps its customer service and technical support in-house, including support for Shopify Payments. You can contact support 24/7 via phone, live chat, or email. Plus, Shopify offers an extensive and robust knowledgebase for self-support.

When it comes to reaching live people at Shopify, your options may be rather limited. Shopify only emphasizes chat support on its website for most plans (only mentioning phone support for the highest-tier “Plus” plan), so phone support may be more limited. Additionally, your level of chat support depends on your plan tier, with only “Advanced” plan users and higher receiving “priority” support. This is not ideal and could indicate that Shopify uses AI chatbots for lower plans, as some on X and Reddit allege.

We’ve had good personal experiences with using Shopify’s customer service and have found representatives to be informed and prompt in their responses. Many merchants report being quite poorly served by Shopify’s support reps, though experiences are far from universal, and you are more likely to reach a live person if you have a payments-related issue (versus a website design issue or app integration issue, for example). We’re giving Shopify Payments a decent rating in this category, though there is definitely room for improvement here.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Shopify Payments’ support options:

• Phone Support & Live Chat: Shopify offers both live chat and phone support, which will help you contact a Shopify representative with general knowledge. They may escalate your issue to the Shopify Billing department, which will respond via email.
• Online Knowledgebase: Shopify has dedicated an entire section of its knowledgebase to payments. You can find answers to many of your questions within these resources. Having used this database to look for help with a question I had, I found my answer in only a few seconds.
• Email Support: Reach Shopify gurus or the Shopify Billing department via email.
• User Forum: Shopify has an active user forum. Use this forum to ask questions to fellow merchants. Occasionally, Shopify representatives also respond to questions on the forum.

User Reviews

We at Merchant Maverick read as many user reviews as possible when researching a payment processor. The challenge with Shopify Payments is that while reviews of Shopify are plentiful, reviews of Shopify Payments, in particular, are much rarer. For this reason, and because you’ll be using Shopify Payments with Shopify, we’re providing reviews for the Shopify platform as a whole.

Here’s what users think on some of the major consumer review sites:

• G2 Consumer Reviews: 4.4/5 stars with 4,604 reviewers
• Better Business Bureau: A+ rating from the BBB with a 1.05/5-star rating from 156 customer reviews (Keep in mind that BBB users typically come with complaints in mind!)
• Apple Store: 4.7/5 stars with 23,550 reviews
• Capterra: 4.5/5 stars with 6,486 reviews

All told, for a provider of this size and magnitude, Shopify’s public reception is remarkably good. While it’s not perfect by any means, we stand impressed by the number of positive reviews the company gets — thus, we’re giving Shopify Payments top marks in this category.

Final Verdict

Shopify Payments, along with the Shopify eCommerce platform as a whole, is a top-notch solution that suits a wide variety of eCommerce businesses, earning it a strong overall score and our general recommendation. However, it’s not for everybody.

While it doesn’t happen to the vast majority of accounts, we’ve read enough reports of merchants getting their accounts terminated by Shopify Payments to know that it does happen.

Moreover, users on the lower-tier plans do not receive the same level of personalized customer service as merchants on higher-tier plans.

On the whole. Shopify offers outstanding value. The platform allows for a lot of flexibility and provides even more cost-efficiency when it comes time to scale up. You’ll have all the tools you need to start selling on your site or outside marketplaces and social media channels. There are great benefits to having integrated payments, and if your store follows all the rules, Shopify Payments could be the best choice for your store.